Validation of Diet History Questionnaire in Assessing Energy and Nutrient Intakes of Iranian Population

Abstract

Background: This study described validity of Diet History Questionnaire (DHQ) for assessing energy and nutrient intake among Iranian population.
 Methods: A group of experienced nutritionists translated the DHQ to Farsi language and modified it based on Iranian food habits and cooking methods. We recruited 244 healthy adults with a mean age of 42.83 ± 0.75 yrs. from healthy individuals who were friends or relatives of patients in the Cancer Institute of Iran from April 2011 to February 2012. We used the DHQ to assess dietary intakes through interviews as well as at least four 24-h recalls one in every season. Reliability was estimated by comparing data of DHQ with mean intake from 24-hour recalls using deattenuated and energy-adjusted Spearman correlation coefficients. We classified dietary intakes of two methods into three groups to probe if DHQ correctly allocates subjects into different intake groups compared to reference method. The results are reported as percent of disagreement, adjacent agreement, and complete agreement.
 Results: Deattenuated spearman correlation ranged from 0.18 for vitamin B12 and fat to 0.60 for sugar. It ranged from 0.13 for pantothenic acid to 0.60 for sugar in men and from 0.07 for fat to 0.58 for sugar in females. The complete agreement of methods ranged from 51% for selenium to 36% for carotene in the entire sample, from 50% for energy to 31% for niacin in males and from 49% for sugar to 27% for vitamin B12 in females.
 Conclusion: The DHQ is a valid tool for assessing most nutrients intake among Iranian population. In addition, it is a proper instrument in categorizing individuals based on their dietary intakes.

Food Frequency Questionnaires Developed and Validated in Iran: A Systematic Review

“…Ten of the FFQs were general questionnaires that included food items from all food groups [11,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21], of which seven had a long format (89-189 food items in the list) and three were short (48 to 80 food items). They were all validated for adults, except for two that were specially designed and validated for elders [17,18].…”

“…The approach used to develop the food list in seven FFQs were data-based [9,11,13,14,15,22,23,26] which new food items were added using an experienced based approach [17,19] and two questionnaires were translated and modified versions of original questionnaires from other countries [20,25,28].…”

“…Long format questionnaires, except for the dish-based FFQs [16,20], included food items based on food groups. food lists, e.g.…”

“…correlations (r=0.30-0.39)[14][15][18][19][20][21][23][24][25] and six had poor correlations (r<0.3) [9,16, 19-21,23] for some food groups/nutrient derived from FFQs. The range of correlation coefficients for short FFQs [r=0.20-0.54: General format (0.24-0.54); Specialized format (0.20-0.42)] were slightly lower and narrower than long FFQs [r=0.07-0.82: General long format (0.07 to 0.82) and General short format (0.26-0.67)].…”

Evaluation of changes in adipocytokine concentrations and correlation between adipocytokines and body fat percentage after endurance training in obese girls

“…The questionnaire was filled in by the children's parents once a month. The validity of the questionnaire has been confirmed in the Iranian population [19]. biochemical indices measurement blood samples (3 ml) were collected from the brachial vein in the fasting condition in the morning (09:00) before and after the 12 weeks of moderate-intensity endurance training.…”