Researcher Dr. May Hamdan from the College of Medicine and Health Sciences published a research paper titled "Night Eating Syndrome is Associated with Mental Health Issues Among Palestinian Undergraduate Students: A Cross-Sectional Sectional Study" in the Journal of Eating Disorders.
This study is a result of one of the outstanding graduation projects by PPU students, Souzan Zidan, Ruba Thawabteh Raya Mohtaseb and Khozama Abu Arqoub from the Healthy and Therapeutic Nutrition program in the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, supervised by May Hamdan and Manal Badrasawi.
Night Eating Syndrome (NES) is an eating disorder characterized by a time-delayed pattern of eating relative to sleep, where most food is consumed in the evening and night. There is evidence that adolescents have a higher prevalence of NES in comparison to other age groups. Moreover, former studies indicated that anxiety, stress, and depression may be correlated with NES and weight gain. The current outcomes showed that 29.3% of university students had symptoms consistent with the diagnostic criteria for NES. The findings also pointed out that gender, field of study, monthly income, source of funding, and mental health are significantly associated with NES.
It is found that NES is common among Palestinian university students. In this study, NES was significantly more prevalent among males, those who were studying scientific majors, had a personal income between 500 and 1000 new Israeli shekels per month, and had mental problems, as well as those whose studies were funded neither by a scholarship nor by their parents.
It is worth mentioning that the journal has a high impact factor of 4,049 and is classified in Scopus, PubMed Central, Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), and others.
Public Relations and Media Department
