Norms for the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire among female university students in Norway.
BACKGROUND
The Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) is a semi-structured interview used worldwide for diagnostic purposes and to assess the core psychopathology of an eating disorder. The Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire 6.0 (EDE-Q) has been developed as a self-report questionnaire version of the full-length interview.


OBJECTIVE
This study was conducted to establish norms among female university students in Norway and to test the reliability of the Norwegian version of the EDE-Q.


METHODS
The questionnaire was administered to 670 young adult women with a mean age (±standard deviation) of 24.8±6.9 years.


RESULTS
Participants' mean global EDE-Q score was 1.42±1.07 and subscales means were as follows: 1.44±1.23 for restraint, 0.63±0.88 for eating concern, 2.00±1.42 for shape concern, and 1.63±1.36 for weight concern. Acceptable levels of internal consistency were observed; Cronbach's alpha coefficients were 0.94 for the global EDE-Q score and 0.75-0.90 for the subscales. To evaluate the temporal stability of the EDE-Q, a total of 159 participants completed the measure 1 week later. Spearman's correlation coefficients were 0.93 for global EDE-Q and for the subscales 0.82-0.91, indicating a satisfactory level of test-retest reliability.


CONCLUSIONS
The EDE-Q was easily administered and required only a few minutes to complete. This brief questionnaire provides a psychometrically established and cost-savings method of quickly assessing the core psychopathology of an eating disorder.
Rø
Oyvind
O
Modum Bad, Research Institute, Vikersund, Norway. oyvind.roe@modum-bad.no
Reas
Deborah L
DL
Lask
Bryan
B
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D056912:Binge-Eating Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D015992:Body Mass Index; D052018:Bulimia Nervosa / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D001068:Feeding and Eating Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009664:Norway; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012016:Reference Values; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult