Relationship Between Depression and Binge Eating Disorder (Case Study Sample)

Relationship Between Depression and Binge Eating Disorder Student’s First Name, Middle Initial(s), Last Name Institutional Affiliation Course Number and Name Instructor’s Name and Title Assignment Due Date Relationship Between Depression and Binge Eating Disorder Background or Rationale Depression is a common psychological disorder that can have a profound impact on an individual’s quality of life. Research conducted by Kim and colleagues (2018) revealed that approximately 120 million people in the US suffer from this disorder. Despite the large number of Americans suffering from depression, the majority of the population seeks medical help outside of conventional medicine, and 95% of those refrains from seeking any medical treatment (Brown et al., 2018; Celik et al., 2015). A binge eating disorder is a disorder branded by incidents of rampage consuming of food followed by distress or guilt. Individuals with the disorder often do experience comorbid situations like depression. According to research by Singleton et al. (2019), seeking help for depression should go hand-in-hand with seeking weight loss. Therefore it will be necessary to assess the relationship between depression and Binge Eating Disorder (BED. Aims or Hypotheses The aim of this study is to examine how depression is associated with binge eating disorders. It is hypothesized that there will be a positive relationship between depression and binge eating disorders, such that people with higher levels of depression will be more likely to suffer from binge eating disorders. Measures of depression and binge eating will be collected, and the relationship between the two variables will be analyzed. In this study, the Independent Variable (IV) will be depression, while the Dependent Variable (DV) will be Binge eating disorder. Measures of Depression and Binge Eating Depression The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is a widely used measure of depression that includes 21 items assessing symptoms such as sadness, loss of interest, low self-esteem, and insomnia (Brown et al., 2018). It is scored on a scale of 0 to 63, with higher scores indicating greater levels of depression. The BDI has been shown to have high internal consistency, having coefficients ranging from 0.84 to 0.95, representing between-and within-group factor validity. The average coefficient for the BDI and its related depression measures (assessing cognitive, somatic, anxiety, and suicidal ideation components) is 0.91 (Garcia et al., 2018). Adults who are psychiatric patients, drug addicts, or medical patients can use the BDI because it has been proven to be valid and reliable (Brown et al., 2018). Overall, the BDI is a good measure of depression, not only because of its high reliability, validity, and clinical utility but also due to its being easily accessed online The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) is another commonly used measure of depression that includes 17 items assessing symptoms such as depression, insomnia, weight loss, and fatigue (Kim et al., 2018). HDRS chooses a rating (0–4) of how each symptom is experienced in order to generate a score range between 0 and 56, requiring high levels of symptoms, with physical and cognitive symptoms being scored as the highest. Overall, HDRS is slightly more difficult to administer than its shorter counterpart BDI, but standard features such as a scoring key, clear yet measurable scoring categories. Binge Eating Metrics The Binge Eating Scale (BES) is a measure of binge eating that includes 18 items assessing behaviors such as overeating, loss of control over eating, and feeling ashamed or disgusted after eating. The BES chooses a score based on how many of these 18 items apply to the individual (0–18) and assesses this number against zero as normal (Brown et al., 2018).  Higher BES scores indicate more behavior, indicating a person eating large amounts of food uncontrollably and binge-eating, which is linked to depressive symptoms. Therefore, binge-eating plays a role in the affective symptoms of binge eating, which plays an important role in the lives of binge eaters. The Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q) is a measure of binge eating that includes 36 items assessing behaviors such as overeating, loss of control over eating, and feeling distressed about one’s eating habits. The EDE-Q assesses the severity of three factors (cognitive restraint, uncontrolled eating, and shape concerns) by which a person presenting for treatment can be diagnosed with an eating disorder. Individuals are grouped together who share common symptoms (Celik et al., 2015). Thus, because of the research in the bulimic literature, it is widely believed that binge eaters are either undifferentiated between eating disorder diagnoses or fall into the bulimia category. The relationship between depression and binge eating disorders will be analyzed using correlation and regression analyses. Potential perplexing variables, such as oldness, sex, and body mass index (BMI), will be controlled for in the analyses. In the process, a series of 2-way ANOVAs will be performed, with gender and BMI category serving as the between-subjects factors. There is no theoretical expectation that BMI will mod...