The detection of eating disorder symptoms in adolescence: a comparison between the children's eating disorder examination and the children's eating disorder examination questionnaire

Introduction: Eating disorder symptoms already occur in childhood and adolescence and are predictive of full-blown eating disorders and obesity later in life. To enhance the quality of assessment in youngsters, this study examined the convergence between the clinical interview, the Child Eating Disorder Examination (ChEDE), and the self-report questionnaire, the Child Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire (ChEDE-Q). Method: Both instruments were administered in 12- to 16-year-old boys and girls retrieved from the general population (N = 57, Mage = 13.4). Results: The results showed that there was a strong correlation between the interview and the questionnaire and that the subscale scores of the two research instruments did not significantly differ. Discussion: The present study is among the first to confirm the utility of the ChEDE-Q to screen for eating disorder symptoms in adolescents from the general population. Large-scale studies should further determine whether these preliminary findings can be generalised