• Chadia Haddad, Rabih Hallit, Marwan Akel, Karl Honein, Maria Akiki, Nelly Kheir, Sahar Obeid, and Souheil Hallit.
• Department of Research/Psychology, Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross, P.O. Box 60096, Jal Eddib, Lebanon.
• Eat Weight Disord. 2020 Aug 1; 25 (4): 951-960.

PurposeThe aim of the study was to develop an Arabic version of the ORTO-15 test and to examine the scale reliability and validity among a sample of the Lebanese population.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional study, conducted between January and May 2018, which enrolled 806 participants, divided into two equal samples, from all Lebanese governorates. The ORTO-15 scale was used to evaluate orthorexia nervosa (ON) tendencies and behaviors among participants.ResultsThe factor analysis conducted on sample 1 suggested a three-factor structure for the ORTO-15 explaining a total of 50.59% of the variance. All items could be extracted from the list; none of the items was removed. The internal consistency of the measurement was adequate (Cronbach's alpha = 0.82). Higher body dissatisfaction (r = - 0.082), higher restrained eating (r = - 0.13) and higher eating attitudes (EAT score) (r = - 0.13) were significantly associated with higher levels of orthorexia tendencies and behaviors (lower ORTO-15 score). We could not detect any significant association between BMI and ORTO-15 test. A confirmatory factor analysis performed on sample 2 supported the three-factor structure of the ORTO-15 test obtained in the first sample. The following results were obtained: the Maximum Likelihood Chi Square = 22.0 and Degrees of Freedom = 9, which gave a × 2/df = 2.4. For non-centrality fit indices, the Steiger-Lind RMSEA was 0.10 [0.040-0.208]. Moreover, the Joreskog GFI equaled 0.926 and AGFI equaled 0.901.ConclusionThe Arabic version of the ORTO-15 test can be used to screen for ON tendencies and behaviors.Level Of EvidenceLevel V, cross-sectional descriptive study.

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