Initial psychometric properties of an Arabic version of the disordered eating attitudes in pregnancy scale (A-DEAPS) among Lebanese pregnant women.

backgroundPregorexia refers to the excessive fear of pregnancy-induced weight gain and the drive to control it through various measures (e.g., extreme restriction of calorie intake, excessive exercising, or diuretics and/or laxatives consumption). The Disordered Eating Attitudes in Pregnancy Scale (DEAPS, Bannatyne et al., in: Disordered eating in pregnancy: the development and validation of a pregnancy-specific screening instrument. Bond University, 2018) is a brief pregnancy-specific instrument developed to screen for antenatal eating disorders. Our study's objective was to examine the reliability and psychometric properties of the Arabic version of this pregnancy-specific scale among Lebanese pregnant women.

methodsWe conceived and implemented a cross-sectional survey between June and July 2021 (N = 433). The sample was randomly divided in two as per the SPSS data selection option; the first subsample was used to conduct the DEAPS items' exploratory factor analysis (EFA), whereas the second was used for the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Within this study, we described multiple indices of goodness-of-fit: the Relative Chi-square (χ

resultsAn EFA was conducted on subsample 1 (N = 207), chosen randomly from the original sample. With the exception of item 8, all other 13 items converged over a two-factor solution [Factor 1 (3 items): Body Image Concerns during Pregnancy, and Factor 2 (10 items): Disordered Eating Attitudes during Pregnancy]. In subsample 2 (N = 226), the CFA results showed that the one-factor model (Factor 2: 10 items), which derived from the EFA conducted on subsample 1, fitted well accordingly to CFI, TLI, and χ

conclusionOur study was able to provide preliminary evidence that the Arabic 10-item version of the DEAPS seems to be a good and reliable tool for the assessment of disordered eating attitudes among Lebanese pregnant women.