Psychometric properties of Polish version of the Children’s Eating Attitudes Test

Objectives. The aim of the present study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Polish version of Maloney’s ChEAT-26. A decision was taken to base the Polish version of the tool on the translation of the Polish version of the EAT-26 with addition of colloquial phrases and syntax.Method. The study group comprised 375 children from Kraków classes four to six (53.7% girls; 46.3% boys). The average age of those studied was 11.8 years (standard deviation 0.9).The mean for girls was: 7.65 (SD 7.48), for boys: 7.55 (SD 5.91). A level equal to or greater than 20 points was exceeded by 7.6% of girls and 4.1% of boys. In the case of four of the ChEAT-26 statements, a statistically significant difference was observed between the genders.Results. Based on a qualitative analysis of seven factors extracted by the principal components method with Varimax rotation and scree plot, seven scales for a test were created explaining 60.24% of the entire variance. The number of statements and scales correlated either positively and negatively with the BMI of the children in the study.Conclusion. The coherence of the results and their consistency with other studies suggest that further research using the Polish version of the ChEAT26 questionnaire should be carried out.