Psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of Mindful Eating Scale in Chinese adults: a translation and validation study.

Background: Mindful eating serves as a critical behavioral strategy for promoting healthy dietary practices and enhancing mental wellbeing. However, there is currently a notable absence of a rigorously validated mindful eating assessment tool that is applicable to the general population in China. This study aims to translate the Mindful Eating Scale (Mind-Eat Scale) into Chinese and to validate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version within the general population of China.

Methods: A convenience sampling method was employed to recruit a total of 346 adults from three communities across three provinces in China: Jiangxi Province, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, and Heilongjiang Province. The Brislin translation model was employed for forward-backward translation. A multidisciplinary expert panel (n = 7) conducted cross-cultural adaptation using the Delphi method, followed by a pilot test among 20 adults to confirm item clarity and comprehensibility. The reliability of the scale was assessed through internal consistency reliability, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability. The validity of the scale was evaluated through both content validity and structural validity.

Results: The Chinese version of the mind-eat scale comprises six dimensions: awareness, non-reactivity, openness, gratitude, non-judgment, and hunger/satiety, totaling 24 items. The overall Cronbach's α coefficient for the scale was 0.927, with coefficients for the six dimensions ranging from 0.757 to 0.864. The split-half reliability was found to be 0.895, while the test-retest reliability was 0.862. Regarding content validity, the I-CVI values ranged from 0.857 to 1.000, and the S-CVI was 0.964. Exploratory factor analysis revealed six factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, accounting for a cumulative variance explained rate of 69.135%. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated a good model fit with χ2/df = 2.273, RMSEA = 0.078, CFI = 0.904, TLI = 0.908, IFI = 0.906, and PNFI = 0.706.

Conclusion: The Mind-Eat Scale exhibits satisfactory psychometric properties within a community-based convenience sample of Chinese adults, establishing it as a preliminary instrument for assessing mindful eating levels in this specific population. However, further validation in more diverse and clinical populations is warranted before broader application.