Reliability and structural validity of the parental feeding style questionnaire adapted for Brazilian preschool children

The study aimed to evaluate of the reliability and structural validity of the Brazilian version of the Parental Feeding Style Questionnaire (PFSQ).Parents/guardians of 269children between 4-5 years old completed the translated and culturally adapted PSFQ. Subscale Cronbach’s alpha examined internal consistency, and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to assess the structural validity of the questionnaire. Cronbach’s alpha of subscales ranged from 0.63 to 0.78, and the overall consistency was good (alpha=0.73). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a four-factor model was valid to asses feeding parental style after the rearrangement of 22 out of the 27 questions in the original questionnaire into four dimensions denominated: (a) instrumental and emotional feeding; (b) prompting or encouragement to eat; (c) control over eating; and (d) permissive feeding. The psychometric evaluation of the PFSQ determined the proposition of a new version with fewer questions to characterize parental feeding styles.