Construction and Standardization of a Questionnaire on Perception of Body Image among Adolescents and Young Adults

Objective: The existing questionnaires on body image perception were either too clinically targeted on few specific disorders or concentrated around only the physical attributes of an individual. This necessitated the construction of a valid and reliable instrument that was relevant in determining the effects of both self-evaluation and social pressure on the perception of body image. Method: Based on the feedback and review sessions by the experts, a questionnaire was designed which was further used in a pilot study to validate the items and reduce their number. Spearman Brown and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were employed to establish the reliability of the instrument based on a sample of 262 subjects with equal number of boys and girls of 17-25 years of age. Results were computed both in general and gender specific terms. Results: Using Cronbach’s alpha, the internal consistency was found to be excellent at 0.903 for the entire set of items and to be good in categorical responses at 0.84 for self-evaluation and 0.81 for social pressure. A high split half reliability index of 0.857 was also obtained. The mean of scores of girls, boys and entire sample was found to be 68.81, 80.43 and 74.62 respectively whereas the standard deviation came out to be 20.32, 26.27 and 24.15 for the same. Conclusion: A valid, reliable and standardized instrument was successfully constructed that is not limited to clinical settings and can be effectively used to gauge one’s perception of body image and progress in self-assessment.