The Brazilian version of the SCOFF questionnaire to screen eating disorders in young adults: cultural adaptation and validation study in a university population

Abstract

Objective:  This study translated, culturally adapted, and validated a Brazilian Portuguese version (SCOFF-BR) of the Sick, Control, One Stone, Fat, Food Questionnaire (SCOFF) to screen eating disorders in young adults.

Methods:  This study used back-translation to culturally adapt the questionnaire according to International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research principles. The SCOFF-BR validation process involved a sample of men and women aged 18-32 years from a university community. After the participants completed the SCOFF-BR questionnaire, pre-trained researchers interviewed them with the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI). The presence of eating disorders was determined according to DSM-5 criteria.

Results:  Of the 361 subjects, 9.7% had an eating disorder (2.2% anorexia nervosa, 5% bulimia nervosa, and 2.5% binge-eating disorder). Using a cutoff point of two positive responses, we obtained a sensitivity of 80% and a specificity of 71.5%, with an accuracy of 72.3%. The positive and negative predictive values were 23.1% and 97.1%, respectively.

Conclusion:  This study demonstrated that the Brazilian version of the SCOFF questionnaire presents satisfactory accuracy and reliability to screen eating disorders among young adults in the Brazilian university community.

SCOFF; eating disorders; anorexia nervosa; bulimia nervosa; binge-eating disorder; neuropsychological tests; epidemiology