Validating the Eating Disorder Inventory-3 (EDI-3) : A Comparison Between 561 Female Eating Disorders Patients and 878 Females from the General Population

Abstract

The Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) is used worldwide in research and clinical work. The 3rd version (EDI-3) has been used in recent research, yet without any independent testing of its psychometric properties. The aim of the present study was twofold: 1) to establish national norms and to compare them with the US and international norms, and 2) to examine the factor structure, the internal consistency, the sensitivity and the specificity of subscale scores. Participants were Danish adult female patients (N = 561) from a specialist treatment centre and a control group (N = 878) of women selected from the Danish Civil Registration system. Small but significant differences were found between Danish and international, as well as US norms. Overall, the internal consistency of the subscales was satisfactory, the factor structure was confirmed, the discriminative validity was good, and sensitivity and specificity were excellent. The implications from these results are discussed.