Exercise addiction inventory

Revisions (EAI-R, EAI-3) improve sensitivity, reliability, and cross-cultural applicability, especially by adding items on guilt and exercising despite injury. Prevalence rates vary widely by population, sport type, and culture; higher risk is seen in males, youth, and endurance athletes.

Main limitations include lack of clinical diagnostic specificity, incomplete scalar invariance, and inability to differentiate primary from secondary exercise addiction. Alternative tools (EDS-R, Training Addiction Scale, SEAS) provide multidimensional assessment and, in the case of SEAS, differentiation of primary/secondary addiction.