Eating Disorder Questionnaire (SCOFF)

Five yes-or-no questions make up the screen, and their key words give it its name: whether a person makes themselves Sick because they feel uncomfortably full, worries that they have lost Control over how much they eat, has recently lost more than One stone (about six kilograms) in three months, believes themselves to be Fat when others say they are too thin, and would say that Food dominates their life.

Morgan, Reid and Lacey (1999) developed the questions in the United Kingdom as a simple, memorable screen that non-specialists could use to raise the possibility of anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa in a brief consultation.

Each yes answer adds one point. Lower totals indicate few signs of an eating disorder; higher totals indicate more, and the report explains what each level tends to mean. A positive screen suggests that a fuller assessment of eating, weight and health is warranted; it is not a diagnosis.

The questionnaire is used in primary care, student health and research as a first step in identifying eating difficulties. On this site, the Eating Attitudes Screen describes eating attitudes and weight preoccupation dimensionally, and the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 describe mood and anxiety, which often accompany eating difficulties.

At the published cutoff, sensitivity is about 0.85-1.00 and specificity about 0.80-0.90 for anorexia and bulimia in the original validation (Morgan et al., 1999).

“Do you make yourself sick because you feel uncomfortably full?”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Item responses are summed to a total score and compared against published screening cutoffs.

The report explains which published screening bands your score falls in and what they mean.