Validity and reproducibility of the FFQ (FFQW82) for dietary assessment in female adolescents

Abstract

Objective: To assess the validity and reproducibility of a self-administered FFQ with eighty-two food items (FFQW82) for assessing the habitual diet in female adolescents. Design: The validity of the FFQW82 for assessment of nutrient intake was evaluated by comparison with a 7 d weighed food record (7d-FRRI) reported as 'gold standard'. Reproducibility of the FFQW82 was assessed at an interval of 1 month (test-retest method). The first survey (FFQW82 and 7d-FRRI) was conducted in April 2007 and the second FFQW82 survey was conducted in May 2007. Daily consumption of energy from eleven food groups and nine nutrients were calculated from both instruments for breakfast, lunch, dinner and the whole day. Crude and energyadjusted Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated using log-transformed data. Setting: Middle school, Tokyo, Japan. Subjects: Female adolescents aged 12-13 years. Results: Sixty-three female adolescents completed both surveys. The relative difference between the energy intake calculated by the FFQW82 and the 7d-FRRI for the whole day, breakfast, lunch and dinner was 8 %, 10 %, 15 % and 10 %, respectively. As for validity, the correlation coefficient of total energy intake for the whole day was 0?31. The result for breakfast was relatively higher (0?59) compared with that for lunch (0?40) and dinner (0?32). For macronutrients, the energy-adjusted correlation coefficient ranged from 0?28 (carbohydrates) to 0?53 (protein). Reproducibility of total energy intake was 0?62 and ranged from 0?46 (fat) to 0?69 (carbohydrate) for macronutrients. Conclusions: These results suggest that the FFQW82 has proved to have some potential with regard to reproducibility among our study population. Keywords FFQ Validity Reproducibility Female adolescents Nutrition assessmentIn recent years, youth obesity (1,2) and lifestyle-related diseases (3)(4)(5) have increased significantly, as have problems related to a distorted body image (6) . The accurate assessment of nutritional intake is important in epidemiological studies. Although under-reporting of energy intake in young people has been shown (7) , the FFQ is feasible for this purpose (8) , considering the circumstances of young people that prohibit them from weighing foods, such as school attendance, as well as their ability to meticulously record food intake.Thus far, various FFQ have been assessed to determine their validity for use in young people in Western countries (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16) . To our knowledge, however, no study has determined the effectiveness of an FFQ in acquiring information on the diets of young people in Japan. Previously, we developed an FFQ with sixty-five food items (FFQW65) to be used in nutritional education for the prevention of diabetes (17) . This instrument assessed energy intake separately for breakfast, lunch and dinner in addition to intake for the entire day and was useful for nutritional education in adults. We reported on the assessment of the effect of nutritional education in a randomized controlled trial ...

Validation and reproducibility of dietary assessment methods in adolescents: a systematic literature review

“…General overview An overview of the retrieved twenty original articles (1,(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31) is shown in Table 1.…”

“…The majority (n 17) (1,(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(22)(23)(24)26,27,(29)(30)(31) of them were identified as studies assessing the validation and reproducibility of FFQ against reference dietary instruments (Table 2), while the remaining three studies considered questionnaires other than FFQ analysed for their validity and reproducibility against different reference methods (21,25,28) ( Table 3). …”

“…The outcome in some cases included the values of validity and reproducibility of the instrument to assess both food and nutrient intakes (16,17,25,(28)(29)(30) , while some studies considered only the food intake (18,(20)(21)27) and some others only the nutrient intake (1,(13)(14)(15)19,(22)(23)(24)26,31) .…”

“…The fourteen studies that translated food intakes into nutrient intakes (1,(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)19,(22)(23)(24)26,(29)(30)(31) used national or other types of food composition databases, thus resulting in a wide heterogeneity of databases.…”

“…In some studies, the FFQ was administered twice after a time interval ranging from 1 week to 6 months after the first administration, in order to evaluate the reproducibility of the method (16,17,19,23,(29)(30)(31) .…”