Assessment of patients with anorexia nervosa: interview versus self-report.
OBJECTIVE
The current study compared the agreement between the Eating Disorders Examination (EDE) and the Eating Disorders Examination-Questionnaire (EDE-Q) in the diagnosis and assessment of eating disorder pathology in a sample of women with anorexia nervosa.


METHODS
First, a physician administered a clinical interview to each patient. Then, before hospital admission, all subjects were given the EDE-Q and the EDE interview.


RESULTS
Results indicate that agreement between the EDE and the EDE-Q on the individual items informing the overall diagnosis of anorexia nervosa ranges from low to moderate. Agreement for the overall diagnosis of anorexia nervosa and for the binge/purge subtype was more impressive. Although correlations between subscale scores as well as eating disorder behaviors were strong, higher levels of disturbance were consistently reported on the EDE-Q than on the EDE interview.


CONCLUSIONS
The pattern of findings suggests that the EDE-Q may be used in place of the interviewer-based measure when assessing overall diagnosis and subtype, as well as specific, well-defined features (vomiting/laxative use). However, there was a low level of agreement with respect to less-defined features, like binge eating, for which significantly higher frequencies were generated by the self-report questionnaire.
Wolk
Sara L
SL
Eating Disorders Research Unit, NY State Psychiatric Institute--Unit 98, 1051 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10032, USA.
Loeb
Katharine L
KL
Walsh
B Timothy
BT
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001828:Body Image; D002032:Bulimia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008875:Middle Aged; D012649:Self Concept; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires