Eating addiction is an important condition related to obesity. The Addiction-like Eating Behavior Scale (AEBS) was recently validated in English to evaluate addictive eating behaviors. To perform the translation, cultural adaptation, and validation of the AEBS scale to Portuguese to identify eating addictions in the Brazilian population. The AEBS translation, adaptation, and validation followed previously published criteria, including the steps of translation, back translation, evaluation by a committee of judges, and a pretest with 40 students. Subsequently, 150 students from the Medical School at the Recife Campus of the Federal University of Pernambuco were tested using the AEBS-Portuguese version (AEBS-p). Of these, 37 were evaluated a second time for a test-retest analysis. For data collection, 5 instruments were used: the AEBS-p, a modified version of the Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0 (mYFAS 2.0)-Portuguese version, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, the Binge Eating Scale (BES), and the Socio-demographic Questionnaire. The AEBS-p showed good reliability, based on a significant internal consistency value (Cronbach's alpha = 0.91), and good correlation in the test-retest evaluation. A committee of judges considered the content validity appropriate. Convergent validation was positive with the mYFAS 2.0 and BES (p < 0.001). The AEBS-p showed a significant correlation with body mass index (BMI) (p < 0.001) and significantly predicted variance in BMI that was accounted for by both the mYFAS 2.0 and BES (p = 0.022). The AEBS-p demonstrated good reliability and validity for evaluating addictive eating behaviors in the Brazilian population.
Keywords: Food addiction; eating addiction; properties of measurements; scales; validation studies.