Eating Disorder Examination – Questionnaire short forms: A comparison

Abstract

Objective: The Eating Disorder Examination -Questionnaire (EDE-Q) is a widely used self-report measure of eating-disordered behaviors and attitudes. Recent studies utilizing confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) have proposed alternative and shorter forms. The aim of this study was to compare the full-length version of the EDE-Q and several proposed short forms (7-item, 8-item, and 18-item) in terms of their psychometric properties, including concurrent, convergent and discriminant validity, factor structure, and sensitivity to change. Methods: Participants from two eating-disorder clinical samples (N = 175 and 38) and from a nonclinical sample (N = 3,413) completed a battery of measures, including the Portuguese version of the EDE-Q. Analyses compared psychometric properties of the available short forms of the EDE-Q among each other.Results: All forms of the EDE-Q showed good internal consistency values, correlated highly among each other (r > .90) and with different measures of eating psychopathology (r > .80). All EDE-Q forms were able to distinguish between cases and controls with moderate-to-high accuracy and were sensitive to change. CFA failed to support the proposed factor structure for all the EDE-Q forms, except for the 7-item form.Discussion: The present study provides empirical background for choosing between different forms of the EDE-Q. Findings indicate that for nonclinical and for clinical research, including studies of treatment change and outcome, the short forms of the EDE-Q can be used. A shorter version is a viable alternative when less timeconsuming alternatives are needed, such to quickly screen for eating-disorder psychopathology or to perform session-by-session treatment monitoring. K E Y W O R D S assessment, discriminant validity, eating pathology, EDE-Q, measurement, ROC curve analysis

The brief (seven‐item) eating disorder examination‐questionnaire: Evaluation of a non‐nested version in men and women

“…The findings reported here suggest that the factor structure of a brief, seven-item version of the popular EDE-Q (see Fairburn & Beglin, 1994 ;Machado et al, 2020) is acceptable whether the questionnaire is presented nested within the larger scale or, as shown here, as a non-nested, standalone version. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated acceptable fit across genders using several indices and although the χ 2 fit statistic was significant (indicating poor model fit), this may be related to the model's relative simplicity or sample size dependency (but see also Ropovik, 2015).…”

“…T A B L E 1 Summary of studies investigating the psychometric properties of the EDE-Q7 Machado, Grilo, Rodrigues, Vaz, and Crosby (2020) i. Outpatient female adolescents and women ii. Women participating in a study on the effectiveness of guided self-help for bulimia nervosa and similar disorders iii.…”

Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q-13): Expanding on The Short Form

“…This may deter some respondents from completing the entire questionnaire. Researchers wishing to use a short version of the questionnaire have tried to decide which version is most useful (Machado et al, 2020). Although the shortest version suggested had only 7 items and had excellent psychometric properties, it omitted to ask about bingeing and purging.…”

“…"You felt a loss of control over your food as you were eating") and purging (e.g. "You made yourself vomit in order to control your weight") that appear at the end of the 28-item EDE-Q were reformatted with the same frequency response categories and included in the scoring of the EDE-Q-13, following the general recommendation of Machado et al (2020). It should be noted, however, that the adaptation of these items into a Likert-type response format was not suggested by Machado et al, 2020.…”

“…Because of the usefulness of the EDE-Q clinically, epidemiologically, and in basic research, there have been several attempts to derive a short form of the questionnaire. Machado et al (2020) used a sample of patients from two eating disorder clinics and a large control group of community volunteers to compare several short versions of the EDE-Q to the original Fairburn and Beglin (1994) (2016) eight-item versions were adequate, only the Grilo et al (2013) seven-item version retained the three factor structure found in the original 28-item EDE-Q. Based on these results, Machado et al (2020) recommended the use of the seven-item version of the EDE-Q together with the nal six bingeing and purging items of the original 28-item scale, resulting in a 13-item version.…”