title: Effectiveness of Prompts on Fourth-Grade Children's Dietary Recall Accuracy Depends on Retention Interval and Varies by Gender.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Dietary recall accuracy is related to retention interval (RI) (i.e., time between to-be-reported meals and the interview), and possibly to prompts. To the best of our knowledge, no study has evaluated their combined effect.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The combined influence of RI and prompts on children's recall accuracy was investigated in this study. Two RIs [short (prior-24-h recall obtained in afternoon) and long (previous-day recall obtained in morning)] were crossed with 4 prompts [forward (distant-to-recent), meal-name (breakfast, lunch, etc.), open (no instructions), and reverse (recent-to-distant)], creating 8 conditions.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fourth-grade children (n = 480; 50% girls) were randomly selected from consenting children at 10 schools in 4 districts in a southern state during 3 school years (2011-2012, 2012-2013, and 2013-2014). Each child was observed eating school-provided breakfast and lunch, and interviewed one time under 1 of the 8 conditions. Condition assignment was constrained so that each had 60 children (30 girls). Accuracy measures were food-item omission and intrusion rates, and energy correspondence rate and inflation ratio. For each measure, linear models determined effects of RI, prompt, gender, and interactions (2-way, 3-way); race/ethnicity, school year, and district were control variables.
  
  
  RESULTS
  RI (P values < 0.015) and prompt (P values < 0.005) were significant for all 4 accuracy measures. RI × prompt (P values < 0.001) was significant for 3 accuracy measures (not intrusion rate). Prompt × gender (P = 0.005) was significant for omission rate. RI × prompt × gender was significant for intrusion rate and inflation ratio (P values < 0.001). For the short vs. long RI across prompts and genders, accuracy was better by 33-50% for each accuracy measure.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To obtain the most accurate recalls possible from children, studies should be designed to use a short rather than long RI. Prompts affect children's recall accuracy, although the effectiveness of different prompts depends on RI and varies by gender: at a short RI, the choice of prompts has little systematic effect on accuracy, whereas at a long RI, reverse prompts may elicit the most accurate recalls.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, and sbaxter@mailbox.sc.edu.
authors.forename: Suzanne D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Baxter
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH; and.
authors.forename: Albert F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Department of Statistics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC;
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Hitchcock
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, and.
authors.forename: Caroline H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Guinn
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, and.
authors.forename: Julie A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Royer
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, and.
authors.forename: Kathleen L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, and.
authors.forename: Alyssa L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, and.
authors.forename: Megan P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Puryear
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, and.
authors.forename: Kate K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Vaadi
authors.affiliation: Institute for Families in Society, College of Social Work, and.
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Finney
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA.
authors.forename: Patricia H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004032:Diet; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D062407:Meals; D011939:Mental Recall; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012737:Sex Factors; D044465:White People
keywords: 24-h recall; children; gender; prompts; retention interval