Application of labelled magnitude satiety scale in a linguistically-diverse population

The labelled magnitude scale (LMS) has been found to provide better discrimination of satiety sensations compared to a visual analogue scale (VAS). The perception of satiety in a linguistically-diverse population may produce differences in the numerical ratios due to language acquisition and diversity. The objective of this study was to investigate whether LMS based on perceived intensities of satiety is an appropriate methodology for a linguistically-diverse population. A total of forty three subjects (28 female, 15 male) were asked to quantify the semantic meaning of 47 English words denoting hunger/fullness at various intensities. Forty four percent of the subjects had English as their first language (EFL sub-group) with the remainder having a first language other than English (EOL sub-group). Words with ambiguous evaluation scores were removed and geometric means (GM) were calculated for each remaining words. Eleven final anchoring words were chosen for the bi-polar linear scale and the scale was constructed by setting the GM to +100 and −100 for each extreme. The types of words removed due to ambiguity differed between the two sub-groups as some words had no equivalent in some of the first languages of the EOL sub-group e.g. ravenous and voracious. The scale constructed was asymmetrical with phrases such as extremely full/hungry and very full/hungry located near to negative/positive ends of the linear scale. Phrases such as moderately full/hungry and slightly full/hungry were located within the central zone of the scale. Quantification of the semantic meaning of hunger/fullness words was not significantly different between sub-groups for the eleven phrases chosen as anchor. We conclude that, provided ambiguous words are avoided, labelled magnitude scales in English can be utilised to assess the perception of perceived satiety in a diverse population differing in their first language.