Validation of the Portuguese version of the Clinical Impairment Assessment (CIA) in eating disorders' patients.

PURPOSE

The purpose of the study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of the Clinical Impairment Assessment (CIA) in eating disorders (ED) patients.

METHOD

The CIA is a 16-item brief self-reported instrument developed to assess psychosocial impairment secondary to EDs. The CIA was administered to a clinical sample of 237 women with EDs and a college sample of 196 women. The clinical sample completed the Eating Disorders Examination Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory and the Outcome-45 Questionnaire. Reliability, confirmatory factor analysis, validity, and clinically significant change were calculated.

RESULTS

Confirmatory factor analysis validated the original 3-factor structure showing an adequate model fit. CIA showed good psychometric properties with high internal consistency, good convergent validity with the EDE-Q, the OQ-45, and the BDI. For divergent validity, participants CIA scores in the clinical sample were significantly higher than in the non-clinical sample. ROC curve analysis provided a cutoff of 15. For known-groups validity participants' scoring above CIA cutoff reported significantly higher CIA scores. In addition, non-underweight participants and participants reporting the presence of dysfunctional ED behaviors had significantly higher CIA scores. Finally, for clinically significant change, a reliable change index of 5 points was obtained to consider a reliable change in the CIA global score.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings support the validity and clinical utility of the CIA as a good self-report measure to be used in both clinical and research settings.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE

Level V. Cross-sectional descriptive study.