Brief research reportBody Shape Questionnaire: Psychometric properties of the short version (BSQ-8C) and norms from the general Swedish population
Highlights
► Psychometric properties of the BSQ-8C were investigated. ► The BSQ-8C is a short version of the Body Shape Questionnaire. ► Norms from the general population were collected to improve interpretation. ► Test–retest reliability, internal consistency and convergent validity were high.
Introduction
Over-evaluation of shape and weight constitutes the core psychopathology of eating disorders (Fairburn & Harrison, 2003) and consequently it has been found that increased body dissatisfaction is a risk factor for the development of eating disorders (e.g., Ghaderi, 2003, Ghaderi and Scott, 2001). Effective prevention plans or treatments for body dissatisfaction require sensitive and reliable assessment instruments that can measure the magnitude of change in body dissatisfaction over time. Information from such instruments can be further enhanced by collecting norms from the general population which provide contextual interpretation of the data. A significant number of questionnaires have been developed, each focusing on various aspects of body image or body shape (Brown et al., 1990, Cash et al., 2004). These aspects incorporate behavioral (e.g., Reas, Whisenhunt, Netemeyer, & Williamson, 2002) as well as perceptual, evaluative, affective, and cognitive components (Allen, Byrne, McLean, & Davis, 2008). One of the most commonly used questionnaires that taps into these components is the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ), developed by Cooper, Taylor, Cooper, and Fairburn (1987). The BSQ measures concerns with body shape and is designed to capture the phenomenological experience of “feeling fat.” It consists of 34 questions to which the reader responds on a 6-point Likert-like scale from “never” to “always.”
Although the BSQ has proved to be a valid and reliable measure (Cooper et al., 1987, Rosen et al., 1996), it is a fairly long questionnaire and is less practical to use if administered repeatedly or together with several other questionnaires. In addition, given its unidimensional nature, Evans and Dolan (1993) suggested that it might be unnecessarily long for use in studies not focusing mainly on body disparagement. This unidimensionality of BSQ has been found in several other studies of participants with languages and cultural contexts other than English or Caucasian (e.g., Ghaderi and Scott, 2004, Mumford et al., 1991). Therefore, a brief version of the BSQ with the same excellent psychometric properties as of the original version would be very useful in both research and clinical practice. Several shorter versions of the BSQ have been proposed, but their psychometric properties are in most cases unknown as they are generally derived from the administered full version, and not administered as the brief version per se, although some exceptions exist (e.g., Dowson & Henderson, 2001). Pook, Tuschen-Caffier, and Brähler (2008) conducted a confirmatory factor analysis of different versions of the BSQ to identify the psychometrically best version. Eight forms of the BSQ where included in the analysis where three of the derivations showed a reasonable fit and only one version, the so called “BSQ-8C”, showed high sensitivity to change. The authors concluded that research on the BSQ derivations as stand-alone questionnaires is needed.
Consequently, we conducted two studies to address this call. The aim of the first study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the BSQ-8C as a stand-alone questionnaire (i.e., test–retest reliability, internal consistency, and validity). The aim of the second study was to obtain norms from the general population in order to provide a more informative and contextually sensitive interpretation of scores on the BSQ-8C. Data from norms is important as it enables analysis of whether observed changes over time might be clinically significant. Given the higher prevalence of body dissatisfaction and significantly higher occurrence of eating disorders and disordered eating among women compared to men, a sample from the general Swedish population of young adult females (18–30 years) was used for the second study.
Section snippets
Participants
Study 1. A sample of undergraduate students at a large Swedish university was recruited to investigate the psychometric properties of the BSQ-8C as a stand-alone questionnaire. A total of 182 undergraduate students (69.2% females and 30.8% males) from a number of different academic disciplines participated in the test–retest part of the study.
Study 2. A random sample of 1501 females (18–30 years old) from the general Swedish population was used in the study. A total of 747 participants (51%)
Study 1
The BSQ-8C showed high test–retest reliability (r = .95) in the undergraduate sample. Significant differences between the two assessments were also investigated and no significant differences emerged (t(181) = .79, p = .43). The internal consistency of the BSQ-8C measured with Cronbach's alpha was .92 at the Time 1 and .93 at Time 2. Item means, standard deviations, and corrected item-total correlation coefficients at Time 1 and Time 2 of the test–retest are presented in Table 1.
Study 2
Using data from the
Discussion
The results indicate that the BSQ-8C is a one-dimensional instrument with high internal consistency, excellent test–retest reliability and high convergent validity. In previous studies utilizing the BSQ-8C by Evans and Dolan (1993), as well as by Pook et al. (2008), the conclusions had to be viewed with caution as the instrument was an unverified extraction from the full version of the BSQ. The present study contributes to the body of knowledge on the measures of body dissatisfaction by showing
Acknowledgment
The Swedish Research Council (42120042614) is acknowledged for financial support for the data collection.
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