Reliability and validity of the dutch eating behavior questionnaire in an online format for university students from low-income regions in a pandemic context: A 24 hour MESYN study.

Objective: To test the reliability and validity of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) in an online format in university students from low-income regions.
Methods: We applied the questionnaire to a sample of 195 and 117 university students from a low-income region (Gini index of 0.56) to study validity and reliability, respectively. The DEBQ consists of 33 items on eating behavior in three dimensions/factors: emotional eating, restrained eating and external eating. The questionnaire was administered twice at 2-week intervals. We tested the reliability via temporal stability and internal consistency and construct validity via exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis.
Results: For reliability, we identified an acceptable Spearman correlation coefficient (rho > 0.30 and p  < 0.05) and Cronbach's alpha ( α  ≥ 0.70) for all DEBQ items. In the exploratory analysis, we identified 6 factors representing a mix of original and additional factors, with an explained variance of 69.1%. In the confirmatory analysis with structural equation modeling, we observed better global model adjustment for the 6-factor model with the Tucker-Lewis index and comparative fit index closer to one, as well as root mean square error of approximation closer to zero than the original (3-factor) model. Using generalized structural equation modeling, we also observed a better fit in latent class modeling for the 6-factor model (AIC: 16990.67; BIC. 17874.38) than for the 3-factor model (AIC: 17904.09; BIC: 18342.67).
Conclusion: The online format of the DEBQ has acceptable reliability and validity for measuring eating behavior in university students from low-income regions.
Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
(© 2023 de Carvalho, Cardoso, Feuerstein, Sousa, Collese, Torres-Leal, Nascimento-Ferreira and De Moraes.)