Abstract Objective Binge eating disorder (BED) is commonly associated with obesity but underrecognized thus leading to a more severe psychopathological impairment. The new Eating Behaviors Assessment for Obesity (EBA-O) was designed to detect pathological eating behaviors in obesity. This cross-sectional study aimed to determine the EBA-O ability to capture BED among patients with obesity. Methods Consecutive participants with obesity underwent a medical visit and filled in the EBA-O. Trained psychiatrists interviewed all participants using the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q 6.0) and the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-5 (SCID-5-CV) in order to ascertain the diagnosis of BED. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA), a logistic regression analysis and a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis were run to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the EBA-O to identify patients with BED. Results 67 out of 129 participants received a clinical diagnosis of BED. The EBA-O showed high accuracy (0.81) and precision (0.83) discriminating between individuals with obesity with and without BED (AUC=0.89). The sensitivity and specificity of the EBA-O were 81% and 82%, respectively. “Food addiction” and “Binge eating” significantly predicted BED diagnosis. Conclusions Although the EBA-O scale is not a substitute for extensive diagnostics, it seems useful for assessing not only altered eating behaviors but also differentiate and easily detect BED among patients with obesity looking for weight reduction programs.
Carbone et al. (Wed,) studied this question.