FACTOR STRUCTURE OF THE ITALIAN VERSION OF THE BODY SATISFACTION SCALE - A MULTISAMPLE ANALYSIS

The paper describes the factorial structure of the Italian version of the Body Satisfaction Scale, a simple self-report questionnaire design ed to assess satisfaction with 16 body parts. The results suggest that the structure of the questionnaire can be adequately represented by t hree different factors. Even if this solution is different from the on e obtained in the original English samples, this interpretation was co nfirmed by a cross-validation on 806 subjects, a clinical sample and t wo normal samples. This result may be useful for the screening of subj ects at risk for eating-disorders because it makes possible prediction of targeted areas of dissatisfaction which is not generally possible with other inventories. The analysis of the factor loadings also sugge sted that three items should be removed (teeth, eyes, and ears) from t he Italian version.