[Validation of the SCOFF questionnaire for screening the eating behaviour disorders of adolescents in school]

To determine the internal consistency and criteria validity of the SCOFF questionnaire for screening adolescent eating behaviour disorders.

Validation study with stochastic sampling.

Three schools at Bucaramanga, Colombia.

241 students selected at random from 1595 possible ones.

SCOFF questionnaire and semi-structured CIDI interview, administered independently.

Social and personal details, Cronbach's alpha, sensitivity analysis, specificity, forecast values, Cohen mean kappa test, and ROC curve.

Sensitivity found was 81.9% (95% CI, 70.7-89.7) and specificity, 78.7% (95% CI, 71.7-84.6). The area under the ROC curve was 0.8596 (95% CI, 0.8108-0.9084); the Cronbach's alpha test, 0.436, and the Cohen mean kappa, 0.554 (95% CI, 0.425-0.683).

The SCOFF questionnaire is an acceptable alternative for screening groups of adolescents because of its simplicity and speed of administration.