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Psychometric evaluation of the French version of the Düsseldorfer Orthorexia Skala (DOS) and prevalence of orthorexia nervosa among university students

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aimed at obtaining a French version of the DOS (F-DOS) and evaluating its psychometric properties in a sample of university students, then assessing the prevalence of orthorexic eating behavior among the participants.

Methods

The F-DOS was obtained using back translation, and then administered to 3235 university students (10.32% men, 89.67% women) with a mean age of 21.13 (SD = 2.23). The Eating Habits Questionnaire and Eating Attitudes Test were used to assess convergent and divergent validities, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to explore the factor structure.

Results

Ordinal ⍵ of F-DOS was 0.87, indicating very good internal consistency. F-DOS and EHQ total scores were strongly correlated (rs = 0.74, p < 0.001), indicating very good construct validity. Factor analysis revealed a well-fitted one-factor model. Regarding Orthorexia Nervosa (ON) prevalence, according to DOS cut-off score, 3.28% of participants could be considered having ON, while an additional 11.31% could be at risk of developing ON.

Conclusions

The F-DOS appears to be a valid and reliable instrument to assess orthorexic eating behavior. ON prevalence in college students appeared similar to Germany and lower than in the US.

Level of evidence

Descriptive (cross-sectional) study, Level V.

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Data availability

The authors do not have permission to share data.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Fanny Gemieux for help in data collection.

Funding

No funding was provided for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches en Psychopathologie et Psychologie de La Santé, Université Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, UT2J, 5 allées Antonio Machado, 31058, Toulouse, France

    Clotilde Lasson & Patrick Raynal

  2. Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Friederike Barthels

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  1. Clotilde Lasson
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  2. Friederike Barthels
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  3. Patrick Raynal
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Contributions

CL and PR designed the study and wrote the protocol. CL, FB, and PR conducted literature searches, provided summaries of previous research, and participated in the writing of the Introduction and Discussion sections. PR wrote the first draft of the Abstract, Method, and Conclusion sections. CL conducted statistical analyses and wrote the Results section. All authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Clotilde Lasson.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards and have been approved by the Comité d'Ethique de la Recherche of the University of Toulouse (Registration number 2019-123) and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all the participants included in this study.

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All participants were informed that results from this study were going to be published in scientific journals or congress. Consent was obtained from all the participants included in this study.

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Lasson, C., Barthels, F. & Raynal, P. Psychometric evaluation of the French version of the Düsseldorfer Orthorexia Skala (DOS) and prevalence of orthorexia nervosa among university students. Eat Weight Disord 26, 2589–2596 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-021-01123-6

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