Parents’ Perceptions of the Feeding Difficulties of Their Children: the Psychometric Properties of the “Mealtime Behavior Questionnaire (MBQ)” in Greek-Cypriot Parents

Abstract Objectives Inappropriate mealtime procedures can complicate a child’s feeding process and lead to behavioral issues, emphasizing the importance of parents’ perceptions of their child’s feeding behaviors. This study aimed to translate and validate the Mealtime Behavior Questionnaire (MBQ) into Greek and examine the mealtime behaviors of Greek Cypriot children and families. Methods The sample included 200 monolingual Greek Cypriot parents. It was divided into two groups: parents ( N = 100) whose children exhibited typical mealtime behavior (tp-MBG) and parents ( N = 100) whose children displayed non-typical mealtime behavior (ntp-MBG). They were selected from Cypriot public and special public schools, and speech-language clinics. The children’s parents completed the MBQ questionnaire, which was re-administered in 10 days. Results MBQ-GR showed good discrimination between the tp-MBG and ntp-MBG groups [ t (198) = 10.810, p 0.001]. It had high internal consistency [Cronbach’s α = 0.944], very good test-retest reliability (ICC= 0.933 [95%, CI: 0.918–0.946]), and external criterion validity ( r = 0.820, p 0.001). MBQ cutoff was equal to 57.00 [sensitivity of 0.660 and 1-specificity of 0.07-AUC 0.870, (95% CI: 0.822–0.918), p 0.001]. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on the four factors originally suggested, using a robust weighted least squares estimator with mean and variance adjustments, accounting for the data’s ordinal and highly skewed characteristics. The resulting estimates suggested a very good fit of the data to the CFA model. Conclusions MBQ-GR has great reliability and validity and can be utilized to evaluate preliminary feeding behavioral issues related to feeding challenges in children of Greek-Cypriot cultural background.