New pre-coded food record form validation

Abstract

Introduction: For some research fields, simple and accurate food intake quantification tools are needed. The aim of the present work was to design a new self-administered and pre-coded food intake record form and assess its reliability and validity when quantifying the food intake of adult population, in terms of food or food-groups portions. Material and Methods: First of all, a new food-record form was designed, which included food usually consumed and which sought to be easy-to-use, short, and intuitive. The validation process consisted in analyzing both the reliability and validity of the tool’s design in a representative population sample (n=330; age: 19-77). Reliability was checked by comparing (Spearman’s CC, ICC) food intake (mean value of portions) between two series of five-day food records in a one-month period. Validity was checked by comparing the food intake mean value of two records to results obtained from a gold standard (24-hour recall). Results: 73.7% of the food from the record presented correlations higher than 0.5 for reliability (ICCs from 0.38 to 0.94) and 97.4% showed higher values than 0.7 and 68.4% than 0.8 for validity (ICCs from 0.28 to 0.97). Conclusions: The solid correlation coefficients and ICCs obtained indicate that this is a reliable tool for the quantification of food intake in adults in terms of food or food group portions.

Keywords

• Pre-coded food record
• Diet Records
• Instrument development
• Validation studies
• Validity
• Reproducibility