Parental behavior as a risk factor for eating disorders: Development of a measurement instrument

Abstract

Eating disorders (ED) are complex conditions influenced by psychological, biological, and sociocultural factors, with parental influence playing a key role in their onset and maintenance. However, no specific instruments assess how parental behaviors may act as risk factors for the development of ED. This study aimed to design and validate an instrument to measure these behaviors from the adolescents’ perspective. An instrumental study was conducted with a sample of 300 high school students to whom the initial version of the instrument was administered. Content validity was evaluated using Aiken’s V, which allowed the selection of 14 items with adequate coherence, representativeness, and clarity. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Exploratory Graph Analysis (EGA) were performed to determine the structure of the instrument. The results indicated a unidimensional model with factor loadings greater than 0.50 for each item. Adequate reliability (α =.90; ω =.90) and 100% stability in network resampling were achieved. These findings confirm that the instrument is valid and reliable for assessing parental influence on EDs. Its application may contribute to the early detection of risk factors and facilitate the development of prevention and intervention strategies in clinical and educational contexts. As a limitation, a possible floor effect was identified in the responses, and the convergent validity of the instrument was not evaluated, suggesting the need for further studies.