The Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26): Psychometric Characteristics and Factor Structure in Nonclinical Sample of 876 Female University Students

The Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) is widely used all over the world, including Russia, for screening eating disorders, however, the psychometric characteristics and factorial structure of the questionnaire have not yet been studied on Russian non-clinical samples. This study involved 876 female students aged 17–26 (M=20.11±1.79) from three cities (Moscow, Ryazan, and Arkhangelsk). All respondents were asked to fill out an adapted Russian version of EAT-26. To assess the retest reliability, 48 students from Ryazan filled out the questionnaire twice with an interval of one month. To assess construct validity, 293 female students from Ryazan filled out the Body Appreciation Scale (BAS) to assess a positive attitude towards the body, 281 students from Arkhangelsk filled out the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). As a result, descriptive statistics of the total score and responses to individual items of EAT-26 were obtained. In accordance with the critical value of EAT-26 (≥20), the risk group for eating disorders included 13.5% of the respondents. The high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha — 0.883) and retest reliability (r=0.865) of the EAT-26 total were shown. The confirmatory factor analyses failed to confirm the three-factor structure originally proposed by the authors of the questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a five-factor model (χ²=226.584, df=81, p<10^-6, CFI=0.970, RMSEA=0.046, 90% CI [0.038; 0.052] with 15 items included (EAT-15), which has high rates of internal consistency and retest reliability (Cronbach's alpha — 0.840; r=0.861). Psychometric characteristics and indicators of reliability and validity of EAT-26, EAT-15, and the five selected scales are given.

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