VALIDATION OF THE FRENCH VERSION OF THE E ATING ATTITUDES TEST (EAT-26) FOR FRANCOPHONE QUEBECERS

The Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) is one of the most frequently used screening questionnaires for anorexia and bulimia nervosa for use with clinical and general populations. Although the psychometric qualities of the instrument have been reported for the English version, little has been done to date to validate a French version. A french version o f the EAT-26 was distributed to anglophone students and francophone st udents, as well as anglophone and francophone patients. Overall, the r esults demonstrated that the authors' French version has the same psyc hometric characteristics as the English version when used with clinica l and non clinical populations. The overall test and its subscales dif ferentiated between patients and non patients similarly in both lingui stic groups. The internal consistency of the two versions, as assessed by Cronbach's alpha, was comparable. Among female high-school student s, 14.1% of the anglophone students and 14.3% of the francophone stude nts scored above the cutoff score for significant eating disorders beh aviour.