Development of a tool to assess psychosocial indicators of fruit and vegetable intake for 2 federal programs.
OBJECTIVE
Development of an evaluation tool of psychosocial constructs for use by participants in 2 federal programs, Food Stamp Nutrition Education and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program.


METHODS
Cross-sectional data from a longitudinal study.


METHODS
Limited-resource women (n = 111) living in low-income communities.


METHODS
Test-retest reliability, internal consistency, ethnic differences, convergent validity.


METHODS
Spearman rank order correlation, analysis of variance, principal components analysis.


RESULTS
Reliability coefficients ranged from a low of r = .18 (not significant) to r = .74 (P < .0001). Two items were deleted for not meeting criteria for reliability and 2 for redundancy. Ethnic differences at baseline were significant for 1 item. Domain constructs loaded on 4 to 5 factors for the biopsychosocial framework. Estimates of convergent validity of 9 constructs led to the deletion of 3 (ie, perceived barriers, social support, and perceived norms), with retention of perceived benefits, perceived control, self-efficacy, readiness to eat more fruit, readiness to eat more vegetables, and perceived diet quality. As an estimate of convergent validity, the final version of the tool with 6 constructs remaining showed significant correlations with indicators of diet quality: serum carotenoid values (r = .38, P < .001); hypothesized nutrients calculated from the mean of 3 24-hour dietary recalls (vitamin C, r = .47, P < .0001; vitamin A, r = .39, P < .0001; folate, r = .37, P < .0001; beta-carotene, r =.31, P < .001; and fiber, r = .46, P < .0001); fruit and vegetable servings (r = 0.55, P < .0001); Healthy Eating Index (r = .27, P < .05); and a fruit and vegetable behavioral scale (r = .60, P < .0001).


CONCLUSIONS
This systematic process yielded a fruit and vegetable evaluation tool useful for practitioners and researchers. This is the first validation study of this type to estimate convergent validity with 5 indicators of diet quality, including a biomarker.
Townsend
Marilyn S
MS
Department of Nutrition, University of California, Davis 95616-8669, USA. mstownsend@ucdavis.edu
Kaiser
Lucia L
LL
D000328:Adult; D002338:Carotenoids / Q000097:blood; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004032:Diet / Q000592:standards*; D004034:Diet Surveys; D005260:Female; D005638:Fruit; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D052756:Nutritional Sciences / Q000193:education; D011203:Poverty; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D020377:Self Efficacy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D014675:Vegetables
D002338:Carotenoids