Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Feb 5:8:8.
doi: 10.1186/1475-2891-8-8.

Relative validity of a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire designed for schoolchildren in western Greece

Maria Roumelioti  1 , Michalis Leotsinidis
Affiliations

Relative validity of a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire designed for schoolchildren in western Greece

Maria Roumelioti et al. Nutr J. .

Abstract

Background: The use of food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) has become increasingly important in epidemiologic studies. During the past few decades, a wide variety of nutritional studies have used the semiquantitative FFQ as a tool for assessing and evaluating dietary intake. One of the main concerns in a dietary analysis is the validity of the collected dietary data.

Methods: This paper discusses several methodological and statistical issues related to the validation of a semiquantitative FFQ. This questionnaire was used to assess the nutritional habits of schoolchildren in western Greece. For validation purposes, we selected 200 schoolchildren and contacted their respective parents. We evaluated the relative validity of 400 FFQs (200 children's FFQs and 200 parents' FFQs).

Results: The correlations between the children's and the parents' questionnaire responses showed that the questionnaire we designed was appropriate for fulfilling the purposes of our study and in ranking subjects according to food group intake.

Conclusion: Our study shows that the semiquantitative FFQ provides a reasonably reliable measure of dietary intake and corroborates the relative validity of our questionnaire.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Van Staveren WA, Burema J, Deurenberg P, Katan MB. Weak associations in nutritional epidemiology: the importance of replication of observations on individuals. Int J Epidemiol. 1998;17:964–969. doi: 10.1093/ije/17.4.964. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bohlscheid-Thomas S, Hoting I, Boeing H, Wahrendorf J. Reproducibility and relative validity of food group intake in a food frequency questionnaire developed for the German part of the EPIC project. Int J Epidemiol. 1997;26:S59–S70. doi: 10.1093/ije/26.suppl_1.S59. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Ocké MC, Bueno-De-Mesquita HB, Goddijn HE, Jansen A, Pols MA, van Staveren WA, Kromhout D. The Dutch epic food frequency questionnaire. I. Description of the questionnaire, and relative validity and reproducibility for food groups. Int J Epidemiol. 1997;26:S37–S48. doi: 10.1093/ije/26.suppl_1.S37. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Salvini S, Hunter DJ, Sampson L, Stampfer MJ, Colditz GA, Rosner B, Willett WC. Food-based validation of a dietary questionnaire: the effects of week-to-week variation in food consumption. Int J Epidemiol. 1989;18:858–867. doi: 10.1093/ije/18.4.858. - DOI - PubMed
    1. American Statistical Association . What Is a Survey? Designing a Questionnaire. Alexandria, VA: Section on Survey Research Methods, American Statistical Association; 1999.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources