International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 26, S59-S70, Copyright © 1997 by International Epidemiological Association
S Bohlscheid-Thomas, I Hoting, H Boeing and J Wahrendorf
BACKGROUND: For the German part of the European Prospective Investigation
into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC), a self-administered, optically-readable
food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), including 158 food items and 87
coloured portion size photographs, was developed to assess the usual food
and nutrient intake of individuals during the past year. In 1991/1992, the
reproducibility and validity of the questionnaire measurements were studied
according to the EPIC protocol. This article reports the results on
reproducibility and relative validity of measurement of food group intake.
METHODS: A total of 104 men and women aged 35-64 years, who are members of
the local health insurance institution, AOK Heidelberg, participated in
this study. Reproducibility of the questionnaire measurements was obtained
by a repeated administration of the FFQ to the same study subjects at a 6-
month interval. The mean of 12 24-hour dietary recalls applied at monthly
intervals served as reference method for the estimation of the relative
validity of questionnaire measurements. A second version of the FFQ that
integrated questions on general food consumption patterns was also
investigated. RESULTS: Spearman test-retest correlations of food group
intake ranged from 0.49 for bread to 0.89 for alcoholic beverages (median =
0.70). Spearman correlations between food group intake values derived from
the 24-hour diet recalls and the FFQ completed in the summer of 1992 varied
from 0.14 for legumes to 0.90 for alcoholic beverages (median = 0.45).
Correction for attenuation due to within-person error in the reference
method as well as the correction for general consumption patterns improved
the correlations. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that our newly developed
FFQ gives reproducible estimates of food group intake. Large day-to-day
variation in food group intake complicated the evaluation of FFQ validity.
Overall, moderate levels of relative validity were observed for estimates
of food group intake.
ARTICLES
Reproducibility and relative validity of food group intake in a food frequency questionnaire developed for the German part of the EPIC project. European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition
Division of Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg, Germany.
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