Reliability and validity of the Persian version of Food Craving Questionnaire-Trait-Reduced (FCQ-T-r) in overweight and obese women

Introduction: Food Craving Questionnaire (FCQ) is a popular tool in assessing food craving which consisted of a trait (FCQ-T) and state (FCQ-S). The aim of the current study was to provide reliability and validity of the Persian version of FCQ-Trait-reduced (FCQ-T-r 15-items) in overweight and obese women. Material and methods: The subjects were 168 overweight and obese women who were consented to participate. The subjects completed the FCQ-T-r and subsequently, anthropometric, body composition and psychometric assessments performed to assess the inter-correlations and concurrent validity. The confirmatory factor analysis was done to derive the potential factors and internal consistency of the questionnaire was assessed. Two weeks later, FCQ-T-r repeated for 126 subjects to assess test-retest reliability. Results: The confirmatory factor analysis of by varimax rotation, show that three principal components were loaded on expected factors. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.90. (0.91, 0.78, and 0.71, for factors). The test–retest analysis shows an acceptable level of reliability ( P=0.001) and Pearson correlation coefficient  of 0.92 between the two administrations. In split-half reliability analysis the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the part 1 was 0.80 and for the part 2 was 0.86. The correlation coefficient between part 1 and part 2 was 0.81. Conclusion: This preliminary study provides evidences in favor of reliability and validity of the Persian version of the FCQ-T-r. In general, the results showed a high level of internal consistency for FCQ-T-r, and none of the 15 items had to be deleted to improve α.