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. Aim: 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. Method: The questionnaire was administered to 670 young adult women with a mean age (+/- standard deviation) of 24.8 +/- 6.9 years. Result: 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. Conclusion: 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.