Validation of the Italian version of the Night Eating Questionnaire (I-NEQ)

M. Aloi 1 2, M. Rania 1 2, P. De Fazio 1, P. Vinai 3, A. Tagliabue 4, K.C. Allison 5, C. Segura-Garcia 1 2

1 Department of Health Sciences. University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, Italy; 2 Center for Clinical Research and Treatment of Eating Disorders, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Mater Domini, Catanzaro, Italy; 3 “GNOSIS” Research and Psychotherapy Group V, Mondovì, Italy; 4 Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine University of Pavia, Italy; 5 Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Center for Weight and Eating Disorders, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Objective 

Night Eating Syndrome (NES) has been included in the DSM-5 within the category of Other Specified Feeding and Eating Disorders and seems to be highly comorbid with other psychiatric disorders. NES has been frequently measured with the Night Eating Questionnaire (NEQ), but currently no Italian validation exists. 

Methods

Overall 574 participants filled out the Italian version of the NEQ (I-NEQ) and the total score and subscales were correlated with measures of eating psychopathology, affective and sleep symptoms. In order to assess the I-NEQ structure, reliability, and test-retest reliability we respectively run confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), Cronbach’s α, and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) test-retest. 

Results

Second-order CFA confirmed the four-factor structure, even if item #9 did not load adequately with the Nocturnal Ingestions factor as in the original version. The alpha coefficients of the four factors ranged from .48 to .71, and the Cronbach’s alpha for the total score was .65. The test-retest reliability was good [ICC (95% confidence interval) = .68 (.61-.74)] and sound correlations with other measures were found. 

Conclusions

The I-NEQ has acceptable psychometric properties and test-retest reliability and thus seems an acceptable measure to investigate night eating behavior among Italian speakers.

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