Repetitive Eating Questionnaire: Reliability and Validity of Turkish Version and Correlates of Grazing Behavior

Abstract

Objective: Grazing behavior which is defined as repetitive and unplanned eating behavior with small amounts of food over a period of time, has been increasingly recognized among people with obesity and eating disorders, as well as in the general population. The Repetitive Eating Questionnaire (Rep(eat)-Q) is a 12 item self-report scale which was designed to measure the grazing behavior. It demonstrated a compulsive and non-compulsive form of grazing in previous studies. The aim of the present study was to assess the validity and reliability of the Turkish version Rep(eat)-Q in a community sample from Turkey.Methods: Permission was taken from the designer of the measure. Ethical approval was granted from the local Ethics Committee. The Turkish version was developed by translation and back-translation and the opinions from the local experts were obtained. The Rep(eat)-Q along with a purpose-designed socio-demographic form and other self-report measures (SCOFF eating questionnaire, Yale Food Addiction Scale, Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire) were administered online to 263 of people from a convenience sample using a snowball technique. Internal consistency, convergent and divergent validity were calculated. Confirmatory factor analyses were also conducted for the factor structure.Results: The mean age of participants were 34.4 years with 77.2 % being female and their mean body mass index (BMI) was 24.7 kg/ m2. As in the original scale, the fit of the two-factor structure (compulsive grazing and repetitive eating) was analyzed by Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). CFA showed that the Turkish version had a two-dimensional structure similar with the original form and indicated good fit (& chi;2 =122, df = 48, & chi;2 / df = 0.77, RMSEA = 0.973, CFI = 0.962, TLI = 0.981, SRMR= 0.028). In our study, positive and moderately significant correlation between BMI and Rep(eat)-Q compulsive subscale was found; no significant correlation was found between the repetitive subscale and the BMI (r= 0.156; p=0.07). The Rep(eat)-Q scales showed excellent internal consistency both for the whole scale and the two subscales (total scale Cronbach's alpha 0.947, compulsive grazing Cronbach's alpha 0.931; repetitive eating Cronbach's alpha 0.916).Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the Turkish version of Rep(eat)-Q seems to be a valid and reliable tool in assessing grazing behavior in a non-clinical Turkish sample. It also confirmed the proposed two factor structure (compulsive and non-compulsive) supporting the two subtypes of grazing behavior. Further studies are needed to assess its validity and reliability in clinical subgroups.