Tag: SCOFF Questionnaire

What is the Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale?

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Introduction

The Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale (EDDS) is a 22 item self-report questionnaire that assesses the presence of three eating disorders; anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

Outline

It was adapted by Stice et al. in 2000 from the validated structured psychiatric interview: The Eating Disorder Examination (EDE) and the eating disorder module of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID)16.

A study was made to complete the EDDS research; the process to create and finalise the questionnaire. A group of people eating-disorders researchers take a looked at a preliminary version of the questionnaire and made a final decision of which questions to put on the final questionnaire with the 22 questions.

  • The questionnaire starts off with questions about the patient’s feelings towards his/her physical appearance, specifically the weight.
  • Then, it proceeds to questions about having episodes of eating with a loss of control and how he/she felt after overeating.
  • The questions afterwards are about the patient’s experience on fasting, making themselves vomit and using laxatives to prevent weight gain.
  • It will then ask you how much body image problems impact your relationship and friendship with others.
  • Lastly, the questionnaire asks for the patient’s current weight, height, sex and age.

The EDDS questionnaire is used for researchers to provide some cures for the three types of eating disorder. It is more efficient than having an interview because it’s easier to get a result, from a group of participants, with the 22-questions questionnaire. Having to interview each participant is a harder and more time-consuming way to get a result. This questionnaire is also useful for primary care/ clinical purposes to identify patients with eating pathology.

In follow up studies of the reliability and validity of the EDDS, it was shown to be sufficiently sensitive to detect the effects of eating disorders prevention programs, response to such programs and the future onset of eating disorder pathology and depression. The EDDS shows both full and subthreshold diagnoses for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. EDDS is a continuous eating disorder symptom composite score. The PhenX Toolkit uses the EDDS for as an Eating Disorders Screener protocol.

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What is the SCOFF Questionnaire?

Published on by Andrew Marshall1 Comment

Introduction

The SCOFF questionnaire utilises an acronym in a simple five question test devised for use by non-professionals to assess the possible presence of an eating disorder.

Scoff is also an alternative/slang word for food.

Background

It was devised by John F. Morgan, Fiona Reid, and J Hubert Lacey in 1999.

The original SCOFF questionnaire was devised for use in the United Kingdom, thus the original acronym needs to be adjusted for users in the United States and Canada.

The letters in the full acronym are taken from key words in the questions:

  • Do you make yourself Sick because you feel uncomfortably full?
  • Do you worry that you have lost Control over how much you eat?
  • Have you recently lost more than One stone (14 lb/6.5 kg) in a 3-month period?
  • Do you believe yourself to be Fat when others say you are too thin?
  • Would you say that Food dominates your life?

Notes

  • The “S” stands for “Sick”:
    • In British English means specifically to “vomit”.
    • In American English and Canadian English it is synonymous with “ill”.
  • The “O” is used in the acronym to denote “one stone”.
    • A “stone” is an Imperial unit of weight which made up of 14 lbs (equivalent to 6.35 kg).

All participants (in Morgan and colleagues research) found the questions and the term “SCOFF” acceptable. Setting the threshold at two or more yes answers to all five questions provided 100% sensitivity for anorexia and bulimia, separately and combined (all patients: 95% confidence interval, 96.9%-100.0%; patients with bulimia: 92.6%-100.0%; and patients with anorexia: 94.7%-100.0%), with a specificity of 87.5% (79.2%-93.4%) for controls.

Scoring

One point is assigned for every “yes”; a score greater than two (≥2) indicates a possible case of anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa.

Reference

Morgan, J.F., Reid, F. & Lacy, J.H. (2000) The SCOFF Questionnaire. Western Journal of Medicine. 172(3), pp.164-165.