Preliminary identification of clinical cut-off of the vegetarian vegan eating disorder screener (V-EDS) in a community and self-reported clinical sample of vegetarians and vegans

Abstract

Background The vegetarian vegan eating disorder screener (V-EDS) is an 18-item self-report screening tool designed to assess the unique elements of eating disorder symptomology in vegetarians and vegans. Previous results have suggested strong initial psychometric properties in non-clinical community samples of vegetarians and vegans. The present study sought to identify a preliminary threshold cut-off score to discriminate eating disorder pathology in a self-reported clinical and community sample. Methods This study involved secondary analysis using data collected in McLean et al. (Development and preliminary validation of a novel eating disorder screening tool for vegetarians and vegans: the V-EDS, 2023), comprising 599 non-clinical participants and 51 self-reported clinical participants. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to compute possible cut-off values for the V-EDS. Results: ROC analysis indicated good performance of the V-EDS (area under the curve = 0.87), with integration of the Youden index demonstrating a global score of ≥ 18 to be optimal in predicting clinical caseness with good sensitivity (0.804) and specificity (0.843). Conclusions The present study fills an important gap as the first to investigate an optimal V-EDS score to discriminate level of impairment from eating disorder pathology in a sample of vegetarian and vegan community and self-reported clinical participants. We extend the utility of the V-EDS in discovering good discrimination power in classifying clinical caseness with a cut-off score of 18 shown to optimise the trade-off between sensitivity and specificity. Future research should focus on expanding the psychometric properties of the V-EDS in larger and more diverse participant groups, including gender, age, cultural identity, and eating disorder history.

Dismantling the myth of “all foods fit” in eating disorder treatment

“…. These proclivities have only sometimes been respected by ED therapists and programs, and practices have evolved over time as it has been realized that more research is needed to decipher their effects on clinical course and outcomes [46][47][48][49].…”