title: Development and validation testing of a short nutrition questionnaire to identify dietary risk factors in preschoolers aged 12-36 months.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Although imbalances in dietary intakes can have short and longer term influences on the health of preschool children, few tools exist to quickly and easily identify nutritional risk in otherwise healthy young children.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To develop and test the validity of a parent-administered questionnaire (NutricheQ) as a means of evaluating dietary risk in young children (12-36 months).
  
  
  METHODS
  Following a comprehensive development process and internal reliability assessment, the NutricheQ questionnaire was validated in a cohort of 371 Irish preschool children as part of the National Preschool Nutrition Survey. Dietary risk was rated on a scale ranging from 0 to 22 from 11 questions, with a higher score indicating higher risk.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Children with higher NutricheQ scores had significantly (p<0.05) lower mean daily intakes of key nutrients such as iron, zinc, vitamin D, riboflavin, niacin, folate, phosphorous, potassium, carotene, retinol, and dietary fibre. They also had lower (p<0.05) intakes of vegetables, fish and fish dishes, meat and infant/toddler milks and higher intakes of processed foods and non-milk beverages, confectionery, sugars and savoury snack foods indicative of poorer dietary quality. Areas under the curve values of 84.7 and 75.6% were achieved for 'medium' and 'high' dietary risk when compared with expert risk ratings indicating good consistency between the two methods.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  NutricheQ is a valid method of quickly assessing dietary quality in preschoolers and in identifying those at increased nutritional risk.
authors.affiliation: Previs Healthcare Ltd, Kilmacanogue, Wicklow, Ireland.
authors.forename: Niamh
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.affiliation: UCD Institute of Food and Health, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gibbons
authors.affiliation: UCD Institute of Food and Health, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors.forename: Breige A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: McNulty
authors.affiliation: School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
authors.forename: Janette
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Walton
authors.affiliation: School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Flynn
authors.affiliation: UCD Institute of Food and Health, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Gibney
authors.affiliation: UCD Institute of Food and Health, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland; anne.nugent@ucd.ie.
authors.forename: Anne P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Nugent
keywords: dietary quality; nutrient-poor diets; nutritional risk; preschool children; screening tools; toddlers