Pregnancy-Specific Interview for Accurately Assessing Disordered Eating in Expectant Mothers (EDE-PV)

The EDE-PV is a structured clinical interview adapted from the established Eating Disorder Examination to assess eating attitudes and behaviors during pregnancy. It separates normal pregnancy-related changes from true disordered eating, with demonstrated reliability and validity in pregnant individuals with BMI ≥ 25.

Description

The EDE-PV modifies the widely used Eating Disorder Examination so that it fits the biological, psychological, and social changes of pregnancy. Interview items and rating rules were reworded so that clinicians can tell eating and weight-related behaviors that are normal in pregnancy (e.g., avoiding certain foods for fetal health, extra snacking for nausea, tracking body changes) from those driven by a desire to control shape or weight. The assessment covers the current period, the preceding months, and the time before conception.

Factor analysis of the EDE-PV identified a streamlined 11-item, two-factor structure: Pregnancy Eating and Weight Change Concerns and Pregnancy Shape and Weight Concerns. These two subscales capture pregnancy-specific aspects of fear of weight gain, restrictive behaviors, and body image. They showed improved internal consistency compared with the original interview’s subscales. The EDE-PV is a copyrightable interview instrument, administered by trained clinicians.

Applications

- Clinical screening and assessment of disordered eating in prenatal and obstetric care settings
- Behavioral health and perinatal mental health programs
- Clinical research and trials involving pregnant populations, including studies of gestational weight gain and perinatal outcomes
- Training and certification programs for clinicians administering eating disorder assessments
- Licensing to healthcare systems, research organizations, and assessment or test publishers

Advantages

- First interview-based assessment adapted specifically for eating attitudes and behaviors during pregnancy, to the innovators’ knowledge
- Distinguishes pregnancy-normative eating and weight changes from disordered eating
- Streamlined 11-item, two-factor structure with improved internal consistency over the original interview’s subscales
- Demonstrated convergent validity (correlations with BMI and psychosocial distress) and discriminant validity (higher scores in individuals with a lifetime eating disorder diagnosis)
- Excellent interrater reliability in the evaluated sample
- Built on an established, widely used clinical interview, which supports clinician familiarity and adoption

Invention Readiness

Data generated include internal consistency coefficients, a two-factor structure from exploratory factor analysis, excellent interrater reliability, small-to-moderate correlations with weight and psychosocial distress measures, and significantly higher scores in participants with a lifetime history of an eating disorder diagnosis. Further studies will extend the instrument’s validation. These include confirmatory factor analysis, test-retest reliability, testing in more varied pregnant populations, and use in longitudinal studies of eating across pregnancy.

IP Status

Related Publication(s)

Emery, R. L., Grace, J. L., Kolko, R. P., & Levine, M. D. (2017). Adapting the Eating Disorder Examination for use during pregnancy: Preliminary results from a community sample of women with overweight and obesity. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 50(5), 597–601. https://doi.org/10.1002/eat.22646

Jouppi, R. J., Emery Tavernier, R. L., Call, C. C., Kolko Conlon, R. P., & Levine, M. D. (2024). Furthering development of the Eating Disorder Examination-Pregnancy Version (EDE-PV): Exploratory factor analysis and psychometric performance among a community sample of pregnant individuals with body mass index ≥ 25. Eating Disorders, 32(1), 43–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/10640266.2023.2259674