Extracting body image symptom dimensions among eating disorder patients: The Profile Analysis via Multidimensional Scaling (PAMS) approach

• Profile Analysis via Multidimensional Scaling (PAMS) of the Eating Disorders Inventory-2 revealed three dimensions.
• Heterogeneity of symptoms reflects dimensions of Body Thinness, Body Perfection, and Body Awareness.
• Body Thinness dimension may be more stable than Body Perfection and Body Awareness.

The present study employs Profile Analysis via Multidimensional Scaling (PAMS), a procedure for extracting dimensions, in order to identify core eating disorder symptoms in a clinical sample. A large sample of patients with eating disorders (N = 5193) presenting for treatment completed the Eating Disorders Inventory-2 (EDI-2; Garner, 1991), and PAMS was then employed to estimate individual profile weights that reflect the degree to which an individual's observed symptom profile approximates the pattern of the dimensions. The findings revealed three symptom dimensions: Body Thinness, Body Perfectionism, and Body Awareness. Subsequent analysis using individual level data illustrate that the PAMS profiles properly operate as prototypical profiles that encapsulate all individuals’ response patterns. The implications of these dimensional findings for the assessment and diagnosis of eating disorders are discussed.