Cross-validation of the reduced form of the Food Craving Questionnaire-Trait using confirmatory factor analysis.
OBJECTIVE
The Food Craving Questionnaire-Trait (FCQ-T) is commonly used to assess habitual food cravings among individuals. Previous studies have shown that a brief version of this instrument (FCQ-T-r) has good reliability and validity. This article is the first to use Confirmatory factor analysis to examine the psychometric properties of the FCQ-T-r in a cross-validation study.


METHODS
Habitual food cravings, as well as emotion regulation strategies, affective states, and disordered eating behaviors, were investigated in two independent samples of non-clinical adult volunteers (Sample 1: N = 368; Sample 2: N = 246). Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to simultaneously test model fit statistics and dimensionality of the instrument. FCQ-T-r reliability was assessed by computing the composite reliability coefficient.


RESULTS
Analysis supported the unidimensional structure of the scale and fit indices were acceptable for both samples. The FCQ-T-r showed excellent reliability and moderate to high correlations with negative affect and disordered eating.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results indicate that the FCQ-T-r scores can be reliably used to assess habitual cravings in an Italian non-clinical sample of adults. The robustness of these results is tested by a cross-validation of the model using two independent samples. Further research is required to expand on these findings, particularly in children and adolescents.
Department of Human Sciences, European University of Rome Rome, Italy.
Luca
L
Iani
Department of Psychology, Sapienza - Università di Roma Rome, Italy.
Claudio
C
Barbaranelli
Department of Psychology, Sapienza - Università di Roma Rome, Italy.
Caterina
C
Lombardo
confirmatory factor analysis; cross-validation; food craving questionnaire; measurement; reliability; validity