The Body Attitude Test: validation of the Spanish version

A Spanish version of the Body Attitude Test (BAT) is presented. It was validated with 165 eating disorder patients (79 anorexia nervosa, 86 bulimia nervosa) and 220 schoolgirls from the general population. Factor analysis allowed the extraction of four factors, as in the original questionnaire, but with different item loadings on each. Taken together, these four factors accounted for 67.1% of the variance. The alpha reliability coefficient was 0.92 in both groups. The test-retest reliability with a one-week interval was 0.91 in a subgroup of 34 eating disorder patients and in a subgroup of 43 girls from the general population. The difference between the mean scores of the girls from the general population and the anorexics on one hand and the bulimics on the other was highly significant (p < 0.0001). On the basis of the discriminant validity study, the use of a cut-off point of 41--which gives a sensitivity of 75.1% and a specificity of 72.7%--is recommended.