Predicting probable eating disorder case-status in men using the Clinical Impairment Assessment: Evidence for a gender-specific threshold

The Clinical Impairment Assessment (CIA) is a widely used self-report measure of the psychosocial impairment associated with eating-disorder symptoms. Past studies recommended a global CIA score of 16 to identify clinically significant impairment associated with a probable eating disorder (ED). However, to date, research on the properties of the CIA has been conducted in majority-women samples. Preliminary research on gender differences in CIA scores suggested men with EDs report less impairment on the CIA relative to women with EDs. Thus, the purpose of this study was to test if a different impairment threshold is needed to identify cases of men with EDs. We hypothesized that a lower CIA threshold, relative to that identified in majority-women samples, would most accurately identify men with EDs. Participants (N = 162) were men from our university-based and general community-based ED participant registry who completed the CIA and Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale. Both precision-recall and receiver operating characteristic curves assessed what CIA global score threshold most accurately identified men with EDs. Both analytic approaches indicated that a CIA global score of 13 best predicted ED case-status in men. Consistent with past research, men with a clinically significant ED appear to report lower impairment on the CIA. Results have implications for screening and assessing for substantial ED-related impairment in men. Additionally, past research using the CIA to identify men with EDs may have under identified men with clinically significant symptoms.