Fekih-Romdhane Feten, Azzi Vanessa, Malaeb Diana, Sarray El Dine Abir, Obeid Sahar, Hallit Souheil
The Tunisian Center of Early Intervention in Psychosis, Department of Psychiatry "Ibn Omrane", Razi Hospital, 2010, Manouba, Tunisia.
Faculty of Medicine of Tunis, Tunis El Manar University, Tunis, Tunisia.
J Eat Disord. 2023 Jul 10;11(1):115. doi: 10.1186/s40337-023-00835-7.
The Inflexible Eating Questionnaire (IEQ) is an 11-item instrument designed to evaluate the behavioural and psychological components of inflexible eating. However, the psychometric properties of the instrument have been infrequently examined, and no previous work has examined its utility in the context of the Middle East.
A total of 826 Lebanese citizens and residents completed a novel Arabic translation of the IEQ, as well as previously validated measures of body appreciation, functionality appreciation, and disordered eating.
The unidimensional factor structure of the IEQ was upheld through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, with all 11 items retained. We obtained evidence of scalar invariance across gender and found that there were no significant differences in observed IEQ scores between men and women. IEQ scores were also found to have adequate composite reliability and adequate patterns of concurrent validity.
The present findings provide support for the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the IEQ in examining inflexible eating in Arabic-speaking adults in Lebanon. Inflexible or rigid dietary restraint reflects an all-or-none approach that encompasses feeling compelled to obey a set of self-imposed dieting rules (e.g., avoiding high-calorie food, calorie counting, fasting to lose weight and/or skipping meals), having a sense of self-control and feeling empowered when adhering to these rules, and not respecting or following internal/external cues of hunger, satiety, and appetite. Therefore, the inflexible eating construct is composed of two dimensions, the first one is behavioural (i.e., obeying restrictive dietary rules) and the second one is psychological (i.e., the belief that following these rules is a consistent must). Until recently, the measures designed to assess inflexible eating focused on the behavioral dimension, while omitting to account for the psychological processes underlying the construct. To bridge this gap, the Inflexible Eating Questionnaire (IEQ), an 11-item self-report measure, was developed to assess both the behavioural and psychological components of dietary restraint. To date, the IEQ is not yet validated in Arabic. Through the present study, we aimed to examine the psychometric properties of an Arabic translation of the IEQ, which would in turn facilitate improved research and clinical practices related to dietary restraint in Arabic-speaking nations. Overall, findings provided support for the good psychometric qualities of the Arabic version of the IEQ, which suggests its utility for detecting inflexible eating in Arabic-speaking adults.
僵化饮食问卷（IEQ）是一个由11个项目组成的工具，旨在评估僵化饮食的行为和心理成分。然而，该工具的心理测量特性很少被研究，并且以前没有研究在中东背景下检验其效用。
共有826名黎巴嫩公民和居民完成了IEQ的全新阿拉伯语翻译版本，以及先前经过验证的身体欣赏、功能欣赏和饮食失调测量工具。
通过探索性因素分析和验证性因素分析，IEQ的单维因素结构得到支持，所有11个项目均被保留。我们获得了跨性别的标量不变性证据，发现男性和女性在观察到的IEQ分数上没有显著差异。还发现IEQ分数具有足够的组合信度和足够的同时效度模式。
本研究结果为IEQ阿拉伯语版本在黎巴嫩说阿拉伯语的成年人中检测僵化饮食的心理测量特性提供了支持。僵化或严格的饮食限制反映了一种非此即彼的方法，包括感到必须遵守一套自我施加的节食规则（例如，避免高热量食物、计算卡路里、禁食以减肥和/或不吃饭），在遵守这些规则时有自我控制感和增强的力量感，并且不尊重或遵循饥饿、饱腹感和食欲的内部/外部线索。因此，僵化饮食结构由两个维度组成，第一个是行为维度（即遵守限制性饮食规则），第二个是心理维度（即认为遵循这些规则是一致的必须）。直到最近，旨在评估僵化饮食的测量工具都集中在行为维度，而忽略了该结构背后的心理过程。为了弥补这一差距，开发了僵化饮食问卷（IEQ），这是一种由11个项目组成的自我报告测量工具，用于评估饮食限制的行为和心理成分。迄今为止，IEQ尚未在阿拉伯语中得到验证。通过本研究，我们旨在检验IEQ阿拉伯语翻译版本的心理测量特性，这反过来将有助于改善与说阿拉伯语国家的饮食限制相关的研究和临床实践。总体而言，研究结果为IEQ阿拉伯语版本良好的心理测量质量提供了支持，这表明其在检测说阿拉伯语成年人的僵化饮食方面的效用。
