Development and Validation of the Pride in Eating Pathology Scale (PEP-S).
There is a growing body of theoretical and clinical literature highlighting the role of pride in maintaining eating disordered behaviours. Despite its clinical importance, there are no measures to assess feelings of pride associated with eating psychopathology. This study describes the development and validation of the Pride in Eating Pathology Scale (PEP-S), a self-report questionnaire that examines feelings of pride towards eating disordered symptoms (e.g., pride in food restriction, thinness and weight loss). Participants were 390 females, recruited from university and community populations, whose mean age was 26.99 years. Respondents rated pride in eating pathology on a 7-point Likert-scale. Principal Component Analysis indicated that the 60-item scale comprised a four component structure: (1) pride in weight loss, food control and thinness, (2) pride in healthy weight and healthy eating, (3) pride in outperforming others and social recognition and (4) pride in capturing other people's attention due to extreme thinness. These four components explained a total of 65.31% of the variance. The PEP-S demonstrated very good internal reliability (α ranging from 0.88 to 0.98) and very good test-retest reliability over a 3-week time-span (r ranging from 0.81 to 0.93). The PEP-S also showed excellent convergent and discriminant validity. Furthermore, the scale discriminated between women with high and low levels of eating psychopathology. The PEP-S is a psychometrically robust measure of pride in eating pathology. It has the potential to advance theoretical understanding and may also be clinically useful. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


CONCLUSIONS
The PEP-S is a valid, reliable, quick and easy to administer self-report questionnaire that measures pride related to eating pathology. The PEP-S assesses four clinically relevant dimensions: (1) pride in weight loss, food control and thinness, (2) pride in healthy weight and healthy eating, (3) pride in outperforming others and social recognition and (4) pride in capturing other people's attention due to extreme thinness. The PEP-S has very good internal and test-retest reliability, and very good convergent and discriminant validity. The PEP-S distinguishes between women with higher and lower levels of eating psychopathology. The PEP-S makes an important contribution to understanding pride in eating psychopathology, which is essential from both clinical and theoretical perspectives.
School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
Cintia L
CL
Faija
Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London and Complex Care, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom.
John R E
JR
Fox
Royal College of Nursing Research Institute, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom.
Stephanie
S
Tierney
School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
Sarah
S
Peters
School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
Patricia A
PA
Gooding
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D004644:Emotions; D004739:England; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012649:Self Concept; D057566:Self Report; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013851:Thinness / Q000523:psychology; D015431:Weight Loss; D055815:Young Adult
Assessment; Eating Psychopathology; Pride; Principal Component Analysis; Psychometric Evaluation