P-557 - Children's eating attitudes test: psychometric characteristics in a portuguese adolescent girls sample

Introduction The Children Eating Attitudes Test (ChEAT; Maloney et al. 1988) is a well-established 26-item scale designed to measure a wide range of problematic eating attitudes and behaviours among children and adolescents. Objective To analyse ChEAT reliability and validity in a Portuguese adolescent girls sample. Method 565 high-school girls (mean age 15.76 ± 1.571; mean BMI 20.42 ± 2.745) answered the Portuguese versions of ChEAT and of the Contour Drawing Figure Rating Scale (CDFRS; Thompson & Gray, 1995). To study the temporal stability 124 girls answered the ChEAT again after approximately six weeks. Results Cronbach's alpha was of .76. The test-retest Pearson correlation was of 0.61. A four factors structure (explained variance=44.06%) was selected: Factor (F) 1 Fear of Getting Fat, F2 Restrictive and Purging Behaviours, F3 Food Preoccupation, F4 Social Pressure to Eat. The body satisfaction as assessed through CDFRS was negatively correlated with the total ChEAT (-.35), F1 (-.47) and F2 (-.23) (all p > .001); and positively correlated with F4 (.26, p Conclusions The Portuguese ChEAT psychometric characteristics are good. Factorial structure is in accordance with the original. It could be very useful to clinical and epidemiological purposes.