Assessment of recall error in self-reported food consumption histories among adults—Particularly delay of interviews decrease completeness of food histories—Germany, 2013

Abstract

IntroductionPoor recall during investigations of foodborne outbreaks may lead to misclassifications in exposure ascertainment. We conducted a simulation study to assess the frequency and determinants of recall errors.MethodsLunch visitors in a cafeteria using exclusively cashless payment reported their consumption of 13 food servings available daily in the three preceding weeks using a self-administered paper-questionnaire. We validated this information using electronic payment information. We calculated associated factors on misclassification of recall according to time, age, sex, education level, dietary habits and type of servings.ResultsWe included 145/226 (64%) respondents who reported 27,095 consumed food items. Sensitivity of recall was 73%, specificity 96%. In multivariable analysis, for each additional day of recall period, the adjusted chance for false-negative recall increased by 8% (OR: 1.1;95%-CI: 1.06, 1.1), for false-positive recall by 3% (OR: 1.03;95%-CI: 1.02, 1.05), for indecisive recall by 12% (OR: 1.1;95%-CI: 1.08, 1.15). Sex and education-level had minor effects.DiscussionForgetting to report consumed foods is more frequent than reporting food-items actually not consumed. Bad recall is strongly enhanced by delay of interviews and may make hypothesis generation and testing very challenging. Side dishes are more easily missed than main courses. If available, electronic payment data can improve food-history information.

A smartphone based attentive eating intervention for energy intake and weight loss: results from a randomised controlled trial

“…A strength of the present study was the use of an active control group [22, 23] and that our control and intervention group were rated similarly by participants in terms of expected efficacy, as a failure to account for expectancy effects when examining efficacy of behavioural interventions can lead to incorrect conclusions about intervention efficacy [43]. A further strength of the current study was the use of both self-reported and objective measures of food intake, as these measures used in isolation both have their weaknesses [44, 45]. The consistent non-significant effect of the intervention on both measures of energy intake supports the robustness of the findings, regardless of the limitations of the individual methods.…”

Rapid spread of OXA-244-producing Escherichia coli ST38 in Germany: insights from an integrated molecular surveillance approach; 2017 to January 2020

“…Therefore, we further investigated community-related modes of transmission through a trawling questionnaire, interviewing the most recent notified cases to limit recall error by delay of interview [4] (Supplement 2). In six interviews, no common diet or common exposures could be identified among the cases, but in all households meat was processed and consumed.…”

Analysis of consumer food purchase data used for outbreak investigations, a review

“…As some of the papers showed, searching through datasets across households with case-patients for common purchases may often be a more powerful method than the standard methods of interviewing case-patients, which are subject to incomplete recall. Interviews are less efficient in situations where, for instance, the period between interview and exposure is long [ 26 ] or the food is of a kind that is unlikely to be reported on, such as foods that are hard to remember (e.g. sprouts), food ingredients or sub-batches of common foods.…”