ArticleFrontiers in nutrition2026
The cost of caring: emotion regulation difficulties mediate burnout and emotional overeating in nurses.
Article in Frontiers in nutrition, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Influence of Nurses' Perfectionism on Professional Quality of Life: The Role of Submissive Compassion.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Appetite for coping: a latent profile analysis of typological heterogeneity in nurse burnout and emotional eating.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Nurses are a high-risk group for occupational burnout due to chronic work-related stress, which may contribute to maladaptive eating behaviors, particularly emotional eating. However, the underlying mechanism linking burnout and emotional eating remains unclear. This study aims to examine the mediating role of difficulties in emotion regulation in the relationship between occupational burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization) and emotional overeating among nurses. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 280 nurses from a tertiary hospital between October and December 2025. The emotional exhaustion and depersonalization subscales of the Chinese version of Nurse Burnout Inventory, the 16-item Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-16), and the Emotional Overeating subscale of the Adult Eating Behavior Questionnaire (AEBQ) were administered. Mediation analysis was performed using bias-corrected percentile bootstrap method with 5,000 resamples, adjusting for covariates including monthly night shifts, body mass index, years of work experience, and sex. Results: Both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization were positively associated with difficulties in emotion regulation ( Conclusion: Difficulties in emotion regulation mediate the relationship between occupational burnout and emotional overeating among nurses. Burnout may increase the risk of emotional overeating by impairing nurses' capacity for emotion regulation. Interventions targeting emotion regulation skills may help disrupt the pathway from occupational burnout to maladaptive eating behaviors. Implication for nursing management: These findings highlight the critical need for nurse managers to address emotional regulation as a key intervention target in mitigating burnout-related maladaptive eating behaviors. Nursing administrators should consider implementing regular screening programs to identify nurses with elevated burnout and emotion regulation difficulties, alongside developing targeted training workshops on emotion regulation strategies-such as cognitive reappraisal and mindfulness-as part of employee assistance programs. Furthermore, organizational efforts to reduce systemic stressors (e.g., optimizing shift schedules, improving nurse-to-patient ratios) remain essential, as they address the root causes of resource depletion. By integrating emotion regulation support into routine occupational health initiatives, nursing management can help disrupt the psychological pathway from burnout to emotional overeating, thereby promoting both the psychological well-being and long-term health of nursing staff.
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