Investigation of the mediating role of ontological well-being and difficulties in emotion regulation in the relation between core beliefs and binge eating disorder

The current study aims to examine the mediating role of ontological well-being (OWB) and difficulties in emotion regulation in the relation between core beliefs and binge eating disorder (BED). Additionally, the relation between mediating variables was examined. The sample of the study consisted of 526 adult females and 198 adult males from various occupational groups. The sample was asked to respond to the demographic information form in addition to Binge Eating Scale (BES), Cognitive Distortion Scale (CDS), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Ontological Well-Being Scale (OWBS). IBM SPSS 24, IBM SPSS Amos 24 and Lisrel 8.8 statistical package programs were used for statistical analysis. All results were evaluated at 95% confidence interval, p<. 05 significance level. Structural Equation Modeling and Pearson Corrrelation Coefficient were used in evaluating the relationships between variables. Two way ANOVA and independent sample t-test were performed for testing the differences between groups. The proposed model was tested on the general sample (n:724), as well as on female and male sample, Body Mass Index (BMI) normal (n:448), and BMI high group (n:276). In both general sample and female sample, the analysis showed that there is a significant direct association of core beliefs on BED. It is found that, difficulties in emotion regulation has a mediator effect on the relation between core beliefs and BED. However, analysis also demonstrated that OWB did not mediate the relation between core beliefs and BED. In addition, it is also found that difficulties in emotion regulation has a mediating role on the relationship between core beliefs and OWB. According to the findings concerning the male sample, both OWB and difficulties in emotion regulation did not have a mediating role on the relation between core beliefs and BED. Besides, the findings revealed that, in both BMI normal and BMI high groups, OWB and difficulties in emotion regulation mediated the relation between core beliefs and BED. All results were discussed in the light of the literature. Strenghts as well as the limitations of this study were presented. Recommendations for the future investigations and studies were added.