The Chinese version of the eating beliefs questionnaire in college students: reliability and validity test / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To examine the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the eating beliefs questionnaire (EBQ-18) with Chinese subjects.Methods:Totally 230 university students were recruited for the preliminary survey of the EBQ-18(224 valid questionnaires were recovered). The formal EBQ-18 was set through item analysis and exploratory factor analysis.Then, 690 university students were selected to complete the formal EBQ-18 for the confirmatory factor analysis and the internal consistency analysis(674 valid questionnaires were recovered). Adult eating behavior evaluation questionnaire(AEBEQ)were selected as the criterion measurement which to examine the association between eating beliefs and eating behavior.Test-retest reliability were examined by 260 participants randomly selected after two weeks.Data analysis was conducted by using SPSS 23.0 and AMOS 22.0 software.Results:The Chinese version of the EBQ-18 with 18 items had 3 dimensions, which were negative beliefs, positive beliefs and permissive beliefs.Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the Chinese version of the EBQ-18 had good structure validity(χ 2=333.82, df=132, RMSEA=0.08, NFI=0.91, CFI=0.92, GFI=0.90, PGFI=0.66). Cronbach α coefficient and the test-retest reliability were 0.91 and 0.87 for the total scale.The internal consistency coefficients were 0.87, 0.91, 0.86, and the test-retest reliability were 0.89, 0.84, 0.90 for the 3 factors. Conclusion:It suggests that the Chinese version of EBQ-18 is a reliable and valid assessment and can be used as an effective and reliable tool for assessing eating beliefs of university students in China.