Assessment of a short food frequency questionnaire as predictor of hypercholesterolemia in adolescents.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate a short questionnaire as predictor of serum cholesterol obtained from a probabilistic sample of adolescents.


METHODS
A probabilistic sample of 5th to 12th grade students from state public schools in Niteroi, state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was drawn based on 28 classes. Five hundred seventy-seven subjects had their blood collected, and 539 answered the simplified questionnaire (23.7% of non-respondents). The questionnaire internal consistence was evaluated through Cronbachs alpha, and agreement between cholesterol levels and food intake was assessed through weighted Kappa (Kw).


RESULTS
Weighted Kappa value was very low (<- 0.05), despite the good internal consistence of the questionnaire (Cronbachs alpha > 0.66).


CONCLUSIONS
The results show that the short questionnaire was not a predictor of cholesterol concentration.
Teixeira
Márcia Henriques
MH
Secretaria Municipal de Saúde do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto de Nutrição Josué de Castro da UFRJ e Instituto de Medicina Social da UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. marciaht@click21.com.br
da Veiga
Gloria Valeria
GV
Sichieri
Rosely
R
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001938:Brazil; D002784:Cholesterol / Q000097:blood*; D015930:Diet Records; D004034:Diet Surveys; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006937:Hypercholesterolemia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards
D002784:Cholesterol