Cross-cultural adaptation of the Craving Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) and the Functions of Binge Eating Scale (FBES) to Brazilian Portuguese
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Background: Food cravings and binge eating behaviors are critical components of eating disorders, contributing to maladaptive eating patterns, weight gain, and psychological distress. Despite the growing recognition of their importance, there is a lack of culturally adapted assessment tools to evaluate these phenomena in Brazil.Aims: This study aimed to perform the cross-cultural adaptation and validation of two key instruments—the Craving Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) and the Functions of Binge Eating Scale (FBES)—for use in the Brazilian population, ensuring semantic, content, and cultural relevance.Methods: The process included translation, synthesis, back-translation, expert committee review, and pre-testing. Content validity was assessed using the Content Validity Index (CVI) and inter-rater agreement via the Finn Coefficient. A panel of six experts in psychology, psychiatry, and nutrition evaluated the semantic equivalence, content alignment, and item relevance.Results: The CEQ demonstrated excellent validity in terms of semantics, content, and relevance. There was perfect agreement among raters for content and relevance. The FBES showed strong validity for content and relevance, with slightly lower validity for semantic equivalence. Minor revisions were made to enhance clarity and cultural appropriateness.Discussion: The adaptation process confirmed the instruments' conceptual integrity and cultural fit. The CEQ effectively assesses craving intensity, imagery, and intrusiveness, while the FBES captures eight motives underlying binge eating, such as emotion regulation and self-punishment.Conclusion: The Brazilian versions are reliable instruments for assessing food cravings and binge eating motives. Their integration into clinical and research settings will enhance specificity within established diagnostic categories, increasing the accuracy of binge eating disorder treatments by considering the integration of various areas of care. In this way, interventions will achieve more specific outcomes beyond the mere remission of binge eating episodes.
