The prevalence of sleep-related eating disorder in psychiatric and non-psychiatric populations

Background. Sleep-related eating disorder is a little-described syndrome co mbining features of sleep disorders and eating disorders. The behaviour con sists of partial arousals from sleep followed by rapid ingestion of food, c ommonly with at least partial amnesia for the episode the following day. Th e aim of this study was to provide an estimate of the prevalence of sleep-r elated eating disorder. Methods. The Inventory of Nocturnal Eating, a self-report questionnaire add ressing nocturnal eating and sleep disturbance, was administered to out-pat ients (N = 126) and in-patients (N = 24) with eating disorders, obese subje cts (N = 126) in a trial of an anorexic agent, depressed subjects (N = 207) in an antidepressant trial, and an unselected group (N = 217) of college s tudents. Sleep-related eating disorder was operationally defined as nocturn al eating with a self-reported reduced level of awareness, occurring at lea st once per week. Results. Almost 5.0% (33/700) of the sample described symptoms consistent w ith sleep-related eating disorder. The in-patient eating disorders group ha d nearly twice the prevalence (16.7 %) of the out-patient eating disorder s ample (8.7 %), which had nearly twice the prevalence of the next highest gr oup, the student sample (4.6 %). Subjects with sleep-related eating disorde r endorsed more symptoms consistent with sleep disorders and had higher lev els of depression and dissociation than those without nocturnal eating. Conclusions. Sleep-related eating disorder is more common than is generally recognized, especially in those with a daytime eating disorder. Sleep diso rder symptoms are often associated with sleep-related eating disorder, as a re depression and dissociation. Evaluation of individuals with eating disor ders should include assessment for sleep-related eating.