title: Validation of a brief diet survey instrument among medical students.
abstract: Our objective was to assess the reproducibility and accuracy of fat and of fruit and vegetable items on a 43-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) previously self-administered by students at 16 US medical schools. Five in-person, 24-hour recalls were administered between two FFQ administrations to 88 medical students. Reported fat intake decreased from the first (34.7%) to the second (33.1%) FFQ administration ( P <.001); the reproducibility correlation was r =0.63. Fat intake from recalls (28.4%) was lower than that from the FFQ (33.8%, P <.001). The Pearson correlation was r =0.36. Fruit and vegetable servings per day were 3.9 and 3.7 from the first and second FFQ, respectively ( P =.5); the reproducibility correlation was r =0.77. Fruit and vegetable servings were marginally higher from recalls (4.3) than from the FFQ (3.8, P =.06). The Pearson correlation for fruit and vegetable servings was r =0.50. This brief FFQ provides acceptably reproducible and valid estimates of fruit and vegetable servings per day among most groups of medical students, but overestimates fat as a percentage of energy intake.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, Emory University Medical School, 69 Butler Street, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA.
authors.forename: Elsa H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Spencer
authors.forename: Lisa K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Elon
authors.forename: Vicki S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Hertzberg
authors.forename: Aryeh D
authors.initials: AD
authors.lastname: Stein
authors.forename: Erica
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Frank
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004034:Diet Surveys; D004041:Dietary Fats / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D002149:Energy Intake; D005006:Ethnicity; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D005638:Fruit; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D014675:Vegetables
chemical_list: D004041:Dietary Fats