THE DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL EATING AND BODY IMAGE SCREENING FOR LGBTGEQIAP+ INDIVIDUALS

Research has consistently shown that LGBTGEQIAP+ individuals experience pervasive health disparities, including eating disorders (ED; e.g., Mensinger et al., 2020). Unfortunately, LGBTGEQIAP+ people report negative ED treatment experiences, particularly concerning cultural sensitivity, gender-affirming care, and other barriers to diagnosis and treatment (Duffy et al., 2016; Hartman-Munick et al., 2021; The Trevor Project, 2020). Sonneville and Lipson (2018) advocated for developing inclusive screening tools to address current deficits in multicultural ED research and practice. The present study sought to fill this gap by developing and validating a new screening tool for LGBTGEQIAP+ individuals: the Multidimensional Eating and Body Image Screening (MEBIS). Following Lambie et al.’s (2017) guidelines, the researcher developed an initial item pool based on a comprehensive ED literature review. An expert panel of reviewers and a small sample of LGBTGEQIAP+ individuals provided additional feedback to enhance item clarity, content validity, and affirming language. The researcher began the recruitment process after receiving approval from the university’s Institutional Review Board. Participants included LGBTGEQIAP+ adults (18 years of age or older) from the community. Two separate samples were collected via an online survey for exploratory factor analysis (EFA; N=400) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; N=339) procedures. The EFA revealed a nine-factor structure accounting for 61.1% of the variance in the model. The factors were labeled as follows: (1) Gender, Media, and Disconnection; (2) Binging and Emotional Eating; (3) Compassion and Awareness; (4) Communities of Support; (5) Relationship with Food; (6) Affectional Orientation Sociocultural Factors; (7) Restriction, Dieting, and Compensatory Behaviors; (8) Racial/Ethnic Sociocultural Factors; and (9) Family and Cultural Support. According to CFA results, the nine-factor model suggested adequate fit (robust x2 (df = 866)=2479.62; CFI=.903; RMSEA=0.74; SRMR=.084). Additional psychometric analyses revealed acceptable internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha of 0.888) and evidence of convergent validity with the well-established ED screening, the Eating Attitudes Test-26 (EAT-26; Garner et al., 1982). These results pose significant implications for culturally responsive and inclusive ED treatment, which are addressed.