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The Validity of the Eating Disorder Examination and its Subscales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Zafra Cooper*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge CB2 2QQ
Peter J. Cooper
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge CB2 2QQ
Christopher G. Fairburn
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX
*
Correspondence

Abstract

The EDE is a semistructured interview which has been developed as a measure of the specific psychopathology of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. To establish its discriminant validity it was administered to 100 patients with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa and to 42 controls. The two groups differed significantly on all items. Five subscales were derived on rational grounds and evaluated on the two populations. The α coefficients for each subscale indicated a satisfactory degree of internal consistency. The EDE provides clinicians and research workers with a detailed and comprehensive profile of the psychopathological features of patients with eating disorders.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989 

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