Assessing Peanut Consumption in a Population of Mothers and Their Children in the UK

Abstract

Background Food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) are essential tools to investigate the relationship between peanut consumption and the development of peanut allergy. The aim was to validate a 50-item FFQ for use in peanut protein sensitization studies.Methods There were 38 mother-child pairs visiting a pediatric clinic of a London hospital included. Mothers recorded their own and their child's diet, using a 7 day food diary (7DFDR), completed prospectively over week. Six months later, they tried to recall the consumption of food items for the index week on a FFQ.Results Of these, 33 out of 38 mothers completed both the 7DFDR and the recall FFQ. Although there was considerable variation at the individual level between the 2 tools, there was extremely close agreement between the mean 7DFDR response and the FFQ when considering groups of fives with similar FFQ levels. Agreement was apparent on both peanut and other control foods consumption patterns.Conclusion The FFQ will reliably divide the population into groups with markedly different peanut consumption levels. It accurately reflects true adults and children peanut consumption, especially at low levels of peanut consumption, as it was validated against the gold standard, the 7DFDR. It also provides a good measure of other foods consumption. Keywords: validation, food frequency questionnaire, recall, children