ResearchReproducibility and validity of food intake measurements from a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire☆
Section snippets
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Men in this study were participants in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, a prospective investigation of risk factors for heart disease and cancer among men aged 40 to 75 years at baseline in 1986. An initial FFQ (questionnaire 1) was mailed to all 51,529 members of the cohort. The questionnaire was mailed a second time (questionnaire 2) after a 1-year interval to the 157 men, from a random sample of 323 Boston-area cohort members, who agreed to participate in this validation study.
RESULTS
Mean daily intakes, expressed in serving-size units, for the 122 food items measured by FFQs 1 and 2 and by the two 1-week diet records for the 127 study participants are presented in Table 1. Food intakes were more likely to be overestimated than underestimated by the questionnaires, and the degree of overestimation was greater than the degree of underestimation. On questionnaire 2, 39 foods were estimated within 20% of the diet-record measurements; 47 foods were overestimated by more than 50%
DISCUSSION
In the small number of studies that have examined the reproducibility of intake measurements for specific food items on dietary questionnaires, correlation coefficients in the range of .4 to .7 are most common 9., 10., 11.. Other studies have used percent agreement to assess reproducibility 12., 13., but these are more difficult to compare because better agreement can be achieved by questionnaires with fewer response categories. Few validity studies of food intake measurements by dietary
APPLICATIONS
These analyses demonstrate that a comprehensive, semiquantitative FFQ can provide relative measures of food consumption that are reproducible and valid for most foods. As validated, the FFQ is most appropriate for use in studies that examine relationships between diet and risk of disease. Further evaluation is required before such questionnaires can be recommended for routine dietary assessment of individuals in clinical practice.
Though these findings apply only to the male health professionals
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Supported by research grants HL 35464 and CA 55075 from the National Institutes of Health.
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affiliated with all of the aforementioned sites.