Reproducibility of A Non-Quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (62-Item FFQ-6) and PCA-Driven Dietary Pattern Identification in 13–21-Year-Old Females

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the test–retest reproducibility of a non-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (acronym: 62-item FFQ-6) and the possibility of identifying dietary patterns (DPs) in 13–21-year-old females. The study involved 97 females within three age groups: 13–15, 16–18, and 19–21 years, including 31, 38, and 28 subjects, respectively. The questionnaire was completed twice with a two-week interval (test and retest). For the total sample, using a principal component analysis (PCA), two similar PCA-driven DPs (DP1 and DP2) were identified separately from test data and retest data, considering two sets of input variables. 60-item-DP1 and 60-item-DP2 were identified after excluding two items—vegetables and fruits in general—due to including single items of various kinds of vegetables and fruits. After an aggregation of some items of the questionnaire, 25-item-DP1 and 25-item-DP2 were identified. The kappa statistic (test vs. retest) in the total sample averaged at 0.52 (0.32–0.72 for food items), while within age groups, it averaged at 0.41, 0.53, and 0.65, respectively. The percentage of subjects classified into the same food frequency category (test vs. retest) in the total sample averaged at 68% (51%–89% for food items), while within age groups, it averaged at 60%, 68%, and 77%, respectively. The Spearman correlations between dietary pattern scores (test vs. retest) in the total sample were: 0.84 (within age groups 0.83, 0.81, and 0.78, respectively) for 60-item-DP1, 0.68 (within age groups 0.24, 0.79, and 0.76, respectively) for 60-item-DP2, 0.76 (within age groups 0.56, 0.82, and 0.89, respectively) for 25-item-DP1, and 0.48 (within age groups 0.40, 0.57, and 0.53, respectively) for 25-item-DP2 (p < 0.05 for all). In conclusion, the test–retest reproducibility of the 62-item FFQ-6 was good or very good for most food items, with a tendency to be higher in older age groups of females under study. Due to the acceptable-to-good reproducibility of dietary pattern identification, the use of a 62-item FFQ-6 to describe the overall diet of young Polish females can be recommended.

Reproducibility of a Short-Form, Multicomponent Dietary Questionnaire to Assess Food Frequency Consumption, Nutrition Knowledge, and Lifestyle (SF-FFQ4PolishChildren) in Polish Children and Adolescents

“…These findings may indicate better test-retest reproducibility of the questionnaire in terms of dietary behaviors in children and adolescents with stable but restrictive eating habits (consuming key foods, healthy or unhealthy, with low frequency and/or consuming only a few selected foods with higher frequency). Better test-retest reproducibility of FFQs for foods consumed rarely or never has been reported in other studies [15,16,31]. The differences between both administrations of the questionnaire were more scattered in adolescents than in children, and the most between the adolescent's test and parent's test, which confirms the results of other statistical analyses.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, there are only a few food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) in Poland for which reproducibility or relative validity among children or adolescents is assessed [14][15][16]. The relative validity of a semi-quantitative FFQ against repeated 24-h dietary recalls was evaluated in Polish children aged 3 years old, showing overestimation of energy and nutrient intake by the FFQ (e.g., median of differences in energy intake between the two methods was 255.4 kcal, and in the range of 7.0-31.0 g for intake of macronutrients) [14].…”

“…A non-quantitative FFQ (KomPAN ® ) was tested in Polish adolescents and adults aged 15-65 years, showing moderate to very good reproducibility of the questionnaire (e.g., kappa statistic for food items was in the range of 0.62-0.84 for the interviewer-administered questionnaire and 0.5-0.78 for the self-administered questionnaire in healthy subjects) [15]. Another non-quantitative FFQ (62-item FFQ-6) was tested in Polish females aged 13-21 years, demonstrating good or very good reproducibility for most food items and acceptable-to-good reproducibility of identification of dietary patterns (e.g., the Spearman correlations were more than 0.50 for 57 out of 62 food items, and for dietary pattern scores were in the range of 0.48-0.84 in the total sample) [16]. There is a lack of tested questionnaires developed for children and younger adolescents.…”

Metabolically healthy obese and metabolic syndrome of the lean: the importance of diet quality. Analysis of MAGNETIC cohort

“…Two validated food frequency questionnaires were used to assess diet quality. For data-driven dietary pattern analysis (a posteriori approach), data was collected using validated for Polish population food frequency questionnaire (FFQ-6) [29]; the self-administered version of FFQ-6 was used. The questionnaire was previously used in various populations [30][31][32], with the reproducibility being recently described in detail elsewhere [29].…”

Orthorexic Tendency and Eating Disorders Symptoms in Polish Students: Examining Differences in Eating Behaviors

“…Dietary data were collected from the participants using a validated Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ-6) [29]. The FFQ-6 tool consists of a list of 62 food items and evaluates the frequency of food consumption over the last 12 months.…”