Bulgarian Adaptation of the Long Form of the Eating Attitudes Test for Adolescents Aged 14-18

The study aimed to make an adaptation of the long form of the Eating attitudes test for the Bulgarian population of adolescents between 14 and 18 years of age. This includes examination of the scale structure of the adaptation, the reliability of the scales and their predictive potential to identify individuals with eating disorders. The participants were 441 secondary school students from 8th to 12th grade. The factor structure of the data was examined using hierarchical factor analysis, reliability was investigated by analysing the internal consistency of the items and the threshold values were selected by ROC curve analysis. A hierarchical threefactor model of the data was accepted. In the reliability study, the scales and the overall test showed good internal consistency, with alpha coefficients 0.83, 0.79, 0.72 and 0.86 respectively. With the exception of the third scale, they proved to be good predictors, which, through the selected threshold values, showed satisfactory diagnostic accuracy. The Bulgarian version of the EAT-40 is a reliable tool for assessing the relevant symptoms and psycho physiological features of adolescents with eating disorders. It can also be successfully used to discriminate diseased from normal cases in non-clinical samples.