The eating disorder examination questionnaire: factor structure and convergent validity of the croatian brief version

The Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) is one of the most widely used self -reporting methods for assessing the behaviors and attitudes associated with eating disorders. Since recent studies have proposed alternative and shorter forms of the EDE-Q, the aim of this study is to compare the factor structure of the full-length version of the EDE-Q with several proposed models. A total of 600 participants (80.2% women) aged 18 to 52 years participated in the study. Among the four tested models, the abbreviated version of the questionnaire (EDE-Q7) showed the best fit for the data. The total score on the EDE-Q7 was highly correlated with the total score on the EDE-Q28 and the Eating Attitudes Test 26 (EAT-26), indicating good convergent validity. The findings indicate that the EDE-Q7 is a psychometrically acceptable and effective measure that can be used to assess symptoms of eating disorder behaviors in the Croatian community sample.