Family Distress and Eating Disorders among Undergraduate Students of University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the relative relationship between family distress and eating disorders among undergraduate students of University of Port Harcourt. The study was guided by three research questions and three null hypotheses to test the tenability of the independent variables on the dependent variable at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted correlation research design. A sample of 388 was drawn from a population of 14,000 undergraduate students of University of Port Harcourt (predominantly 100 and 200) level, using simple random and purposive sampling techniques. The instruments for data collection were Eating Attitude Test (EAT) and questionnaire for family distress which were validated by experts.  The reliability of the instruments was ascertained to be 0.73. Mean and Standard deviation statistics were used to answer the research questions while Pearson product moment correlation analysis was used to test the null hypothesis. The study revealed that there is a relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable while hypothesis 2 was not statistically significant. It was also revealed that, hypothesis 3 was statistically significant indicating an existence influence of the independent variable on the dependent variable. It was recommended that parents, educational institutions and the government should wake up to their responsibilities of teaching certain aspects of eating attitude in order to curb the danger inherent in eating disorders.

Keywords: Family, Distress, Eating, Disorders, Anorexia, Bulimia, Binge