Similarly, eating disorder pathology and risk factors were not invariant across Caucasian American women and African American women (Kelly et al., 2012). Different attitudes towards food consumption for gender was found to be reinforced by differing cultural idealsвЂ“which were not adequately captured in the EDDS (Lee et al., 2007). Additional weaknesses include gender and cultural insensitivity. This is because eating disorders, though low in prevalence compared to other clinical disorders, has one the highest mortality rates amongst psychiatric conditions (Arcelus, Mitchell, Wales, & Nielsen, 2011). Conversely, this may not necessarily be a negative drawback considering that when used as a screening tool it is preferable to be able to identify more people as false positives than run a risk of missing out on detecting potential cases of eating disorders. In at least one study, the EDDS has been found to generate a large number of вЂfalse positivesвЂ™ (Lee et al., 2007), indicating a weakness in specificity.

However, the EDDS is not without its limitations. It is sensitive to change over time that is, the EDDS has the versatility of being used as a screening tool at the beginning stages of assessment, a diagnostic tool in supporting eating disorder diagnostic criteria, and lastly it may also be used for treatment monitoring and evaluation. With only 22 items, it takes only a few minutes to complete the entire instrument. Consistently, data also suggested that the EDDS possessed convergent validity by comparing participants with eating disorders with their non-diagnosis control counterparts with higher scores reported for those with eating disorders than those without. 4 suggest poor reliability.Д¬ontent validity results generated by the 14 eating disorder experts revealed that items within the scale adequately reflected the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for Anorexia, Bulimia, and Binge-eating disorder. 8 indicate moderate agreement, and values less than. 8 represent high reliability, values between. These reliability magnitudes reflect ShroutвЂ™s (1998) psychometric rule-of-thumb whereby kappa values above. Likewise, internal consistency of the overall symptom composite score was robust (CronbachвЂ™s О± =. The overall symptom composite test-retest reliability was also strong (kappa =. 95), and adequate test-retest coefficients for Bulimia (kappa =. Results revealed excellent 1-week test-retest reliability for Anorexia (kappa =.

These items were evaluated by a panel of 14 eating disorder experts, followed by revision to eventually produce the final EDDS to test for reliability and validity against an American female sample aged 13 to 65 years inclusive of those with and without eating disorders. The developers first generated a pool of items to assess DSM-IV eating disorder diagnostic criteria. The EDDS went through a rigorous development and validation process with careful adherence to a number of steps. The symptom composite scale may be used to create a continuous composite score of disordered eating pathology. (2000) have developed a scoring algorithm to accompany this scale to determine score cut-offs. The diagnostic scale may be used to inform diagnosis of Anorexia, Bulimia and Binge-eating disorders. There are two further scales used in the EDDS that differentiate between eating disorders and deviance from healthy eating pathology. Lastly, individuals are asked to record their height, weight, presence of menstrual cycles and birth control pill use. The following four items measure frequency of compensatory behaviours. The next four items measure the frequency of uncontrollable food consumption, with a focus on the number of days per week over the past 6 months (a criterion for Binge-eating disorder), and number times per week over the last 3 months (a criterion for Bulimia). The first four questions assess attitudinal symptoms of Anorexia and Bulimia within the past 3 months. The scale is comprised of a combination of Likert ratings, dichotomous scores, behavioural frequency scores, and open-ended questions asking for weight and height. The Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale (EDDS Stice, Telch, & Rizvi, 2000) is a 22-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia nervosa, and Binge-eating disorder symptomatology aligned with the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria.

Eating inventory questionnaire