title: Quality assurance of the international computerised 24 h dietary recall method (EPIC-Soft).
abstract: The interview-administered 24 h dietary recall (24-HDR) EPIC-Soft® has a series of controls to guarantee the quality of dietary data across countries. These comprise all steps that are part of fieldwork preparation, data collection and data management; however, a complete characterisation of these quality controls is still lacking. The present paper describes in detail the quality controls applied in EPIC-Soft, which are, to a large extent, built on the basis of the EPIC-Soft error model and are present in three phases: (1) before, (2) during and (3) after the 24-HDR interviews. Quality controls for consistency and harmonisation are implemented before the interviews while preparing the seventy databases constituting an EPIC-Soft version (e.g. pre-defined and coded foods and recipes). During the interviews, EPIC-Soft uses a cognitive approach by helping the respondent to recall the dietary intake information in a stepwise manner and includes controls for consistency (e.g. probing questions) as well as for completeness of the collected data (e.g. system calculation for some unknown amounts). After the interviews, a series of controls can be applied by dietitians and data managers to further guarantee data quality. For example, the interview-specific 'note files' that were created to track any problems or missing information during the interviews can be checked to clarify the information initially provided. Overall, the quality controls employed in the EPIC-Soft methodology are not always perceivable, but prove to be of assistance for its overall standardisation and possibly for the accuracy of the collected data.
authors.affiliation: Dietary Exposure Assessment Group, Section of Nutrition and Metabolism, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 150, Cours Albert Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France.
authors.forename: Sandra P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Crispim
authors.affiliation: Dietary Exposure Assessment Group, Section of Nutrition and Metabolism, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 150, Cours Albert Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France.
authors.forename: Genevieve
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nicolas
authors.affiliation: Dietary Exposure Assessment Group, Section of Nutrition and Metabolism, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 150, Cours Albert Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France.
authors.forename: Corinne
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Casagrande
authors.affiliation: Dietary Exposure Assessment Group, Section of Nutrition and Metabolism, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 150, Cours Albert Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France.
authors.forename: Viktoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Knaze
authors.affiliation: Dietary Exposure Assessment Group, Section of Nutrition and Metabolism, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 150, Cours Albert Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France.
authors.forename: Anne-Kathrin
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Illner
authors.affiliation: Dietary Exposure Assessment Group, Section of Nutrition and Metabolism, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 150, Cours Albert Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France.
authors.forename: Inge
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Huybrechts
authors.affiliation: Dietary Exposure Assessment Group, Section of Nutrition and Metabolism, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), 150, Cours Albert Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France.
authors.forename: Nadia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Slimani
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004032:Diet / Q000009:adverse effects; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory; D015596:Nutrition Assessment; D011786:Quality Control; D012984:Software; D054928:Validation Studies as Topic