Validity and Reliability of the Turkish Version of the Emotional Eater Questionnaire (EEQ-TR).

Abstract

In this study, we aimed to translate the Emotional Eater Questionnaire (EEQ) to Turkish and investigate the reliability and validity of the Turkish version. The participants, consisting of 749 undergraduate students majoring at nursing or midwifery, completed on the EEQ and the Oxford Happiness Scale (OHS), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Orthorexia Nervosa-11 Scale (ORTO-11), the Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale (ZCBS) and the Eating Attitude Test (EAT). An internal consistency coefficient of 0.84 was computed for the entire scale which, similarly to the original scale, demonstrated a three-factor structure, namely, "Disinhibition", "Type of food" and "Guilt". All corrected item-total correlations were above 0.34. The EEQ score showed negative correlations with the OHS score at a low level (r=-0.15, p<0.001), and the EAT score at a moderate level(r=-0.33, p<0.001); and positive correlations with the BDI score (r=0.16, p<0.001) at a low level and the ZCBS score at a moderate level (r=0.36, p<0.01). The variance analysis demonstrated significant differences in the EEQ scores of the normal-weight, overweight and obese students [F(2.712) =11.17, p<0.001, η2 = 0.03]. EEQ Turkish version seems to have sufficient internal consistency which supported its reliability as well as the construct validity. Our data provided additional support for the validity of the EEQ for assessing the emotional overeating tendency among the Turkish university students.