Abstract

The purpose of the study was to develop and evaluate the reliability of a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (SFFQ) intended to measure mainly nutrient intake (energy, protein, fat, calcium and iron) related to growth in pre-schoolers in Korea. Based on foods with up to 90 cumulative percent contribution of the 5 nutrients, we developed a SFFQ for 86 foods. In order to evaluate the reliability of both nutrient and food intakes, caregivers of a sample of 101 children aged 4 to 6 years completed the SFFQ repeatedly at 3 month intervals. There were small differences in the nutrient intakes assessed by the SFFQ ranging from 0.55% to 9.91%. There were no significant differences in nutrient values calculated from the repeat questionnaires, except in the case of niacin and vitamin C. The Pearson correlation coefficients of most of the nutrients ranged form 0.54 to 0.75 (mean = 0.66). When energy intake was adjusted, there was approximately a 0.2 decrease in the correlation coefficient of most nutrients, due to the high correlation of energy intake with other nutrients (r=0.7-0.9). The amount of food intake differed by 0.1 to 66.4% (mean = 17.5%), depending on the food item. Out of 86 foods, 74 foods (86%) showed less than a 30% difference in intake and 30 foods (35%) showed less than a 10% difference. Only 6 (7%) out of the 86 foods presented statistically significant differences in intake. The Spearman correlation coefficients of most food intakes assessed repeatedly by the SFFQ ranged from 0.4 to 0.7. Reproducibility of the nutrient and food intakes found in this study was better or similar to those found in cases of Korean adults. Therefore, the SFFQ developed in the present study can be a useful tool to assess the dietary intake of pre-schoolers in Korea.

• Keywords: semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire; reliability; nutrient; food; pre-schoolers