Integrated health articleOriginal articleFactor structure and predictive utility of the Binge Eating Scale in bariatric surgery candidates
Section snippets
Participants
The participants were 530 consecutive patients presenting for psychological evaluation before undergoing Roux-en-Y gastric bypass at an urban academic medical center. Most participants (84.0%) were women, with a BMI of 34.9–84.4 kg/m2 (mean 50.7 ± 9.2) and age range of 18–67 years (mean 41.9 ± 10.4). Approximately one half of the participants (52.3%) were black, 36.6% were white, and 9.4% were Hispanic.
Binge Eating Scale
Each of the 16 items of the BES contains 3–4 response options, reflecting a range of severity
BES Descriptives
The mean total score for the BES was 13.4 ± 8.5 (range 0–39). The distribution of responses within the established cutoffs was 67% “absent to minimal binge eating” (score 0–17), 24% “mild to moderate binge eating” (score 18–26), and 9% “severe binge eating” (score >26). In this sample, Cronbach's α for the total score was .87, indicating good internal consistency.
Factor structure of the BES
First, we specified a base model against which several alternative nested models were evaluated. The fit statistics of all models
Discussion
The results of the present study suggest that the BES is a reliable measure that identifies approximately one third of patients seeking bariatric surgery at an urban medical center as having at least mild to moderate self-reported binge eating behaviors or cognitions. Notably, this number might underrepresent the true presence of binge eating in this population, because there is the potential for socially desirable responding in patients presenting for a required psychological evaluation. A
Conclusion
Because the original BES scale development report did not specify the item assignment for each binge eating component measured by the scale, we recommend additional evaluation of the factor structure of the BES in other populations. Based on the empirical results from the present study, however, the BES does appear to measure feelings/cognitions and behaviors in bariatric surgery patients. If additional validation studies support this factor structure, this would support the interpretation of
Disclosures
The authors have no commercial associations that might be a conflict of interest in relation to this article.
Acknowledgment
Dr Hall’s contribution to this work was supported by NIMH Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Grant T32MH014592-35 (PI: Zandi).
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