The Body Influence Assessment Inventory (BIAI): Development and initial validation.

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Psychology
• Clinical Assessment

Background:

• Body image disturbances are prevalent in eating disorders and linked to suicide-related behaviors.
• Accurate assessment tools are crucial for understanding and treating these conditions.
• Existing instruments may not fully capture the specific dimensions of bodily experiences relevant to suicide risk in eating disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the development of the Body Influence Assessment Inventory (BIAI), a 28-item self-report measure.
• To evaluate the preliminary psychometric properties of the BIAI across four studies.
• To assess the BIAI's ability to measure four dimensions of bodily experiences linked to suicide-related behaviors in eating disorders.

Main Methods:

• Instrument development followed four distinct phases.
• Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on data from nonclinical and clinical samples (total N = 1052).
• Psychometric properties including reliability (test-retest, Cronbach's alpha) and validity (criterion-related, known-groups, concurrent) were examined.

Main Results:

• Exploratory factor analysis identified a four-factor structure for the BIAI.
• Confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor oblique solution with excellent fit indices (CFI = .95, TLI = .93, RMSEA = .05).
• The BIAI demonstrated good to excellent reliability (test-retest: .80–.89; Cronbach's alpha: .81–.90) and strong validity evidence.

Conclusions:

• The Body Influence Assessment Inventory (BIAI) shows promising preliminary psychometric properties.
• The BIAI is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing body image dimensions relevant to eating disorders and suicide risk.
• Further research is warranted to confirm its utility in diverse clinical populations.