Online Arabic Beverage Frequency Questionnaire (ABFQ): evaluation of validity and reliability

Abstract

Background Obesity and chronic diseases are significant public health issues in the Middle East and North Africa region. A robust body of evidence demonstrated the association between beverage consumption, obesity, and chronic diseases. Therefore, the assessment of beverage consumption is gaining more interest in health policy development, food industry partnerships, research expansion and community involvement. Although beverage-consumption assessment tools have been developed for various populations, none were developed for the Arabic population. In this study, we developed and validated an online Arabic Beverage Frequency Questionnaire (ABFQ) to assess the total beverage intake among Arabic speaking population. Methods A cross-sectional validation study was conducted among healthy adults aged between 18 and 55 years. Participants (n = 49) completed a 24-item ABFQ on two occasions and provided one 24-h urine sample. For validity, total beverage consumption (ABFQ1) was assessed against a 24-h urine sample using an osmolality test and correlation analysis. Reliability was assessed by comparing the participants’ consumption in total and for every 24 individual items from ABFQ1 with the total and individual items in ABFQ2 using correlation and paired sample t-test. Results The average daily consumption of beverages was 1504 ml/day, while the average urine osmolality/kg was 614. The validity assessment between ABFQ and urine osmolality indicates a negative correlation. However, the correlation was week and not statistically significant (rs = -0.2, p = 0.12). In reliability test, correlation analysis was positive and acceptable in all beverage categories (rs = 0.4 − 0.9; all p < 0.05) except flavored milk (rs = 0.2; p < 0.181) and sweetened coffee (rs = 0.3; p < 0.022). Furthermore, no significant differences were found between the means of total consumption in both ABFQ1 and ABFQ2. Conclusions The finding of this study suggest that the ABFQ is a reliable reproducible tool for assessing beverage consumption among Arabic-speaking consumers. However, the survey could not be validated using 24-h urine osmolality only and other methods such as multi dietary records may use in future re-assessment.

Highlighting Soft Drinks Consumption in Lebanon

“…The soft drink consumption per week among all the participants was (on average) 3.5 ordinary glasses with a standard deviation of 2.993 glasses, that is, a minimum average of 0.507 glasses to a maximum of 6.493 glasses. In Saudi Arabia, Aldhirgham, Almutairi, Alraqea, et al (2023) reported an average consumption of 3.43±0.62 glasses per week. However, most statistics on the subject refer to a consumption measure in per capita liters per person yearly.…”

“…This research has merit since it provides new facts about Lebanese soft drink consumers based on highly reliable sample size. Researchers from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), among others, conducted several studies (Benajiba and Mahboub, 2019;Islam, Al-Karasneh, Hussain, et al, 2020;Aldhirgham, Almutairi, Alraqea, et al, 2023;Nassar, Islam, Hasan, et al, 2023). In Egypt, Al-Askalany, Sadden, & Mohamed (2018) experimented with the impact of soft drinks on blood and liver in rats.…”