The e-EPIDEMIOLOGY Mobile Phone App for Dietary Intake Assessment: Comparison with a Food Frequency Questionnaire

Luis Maria Bejar, Brett Northrop Sharp, María Dolores García-Perea, Luis Maria Bejar, Brett Northrop Sharp, María Dolores García-Perea

Abstract

Background: There is a great necessity for new methods of evaluation of dietary intake that overcome the limitations of traditional self-reporting methods.

Objective: The objective of this study was to develop a new method, based on an app for mobile phones called e-EPIDEMIOLOGY, which was designed to collect individual consumption data for a series of foods/drinks, and to compare this app with a previously validated paper food frequency questionnaire (FFQ).

Methods: University students >18 years of age recorded the consumption of certain foods/drinks using e-EPIDEMIOLOGY during 28 consecutive days and then filled out a paper FFQ at the end of the study period. To evaluate the agreement between the categories of habitual consumption for each of the foods/drinks included in the study, cross-classification analysis and a weighted kappa statistic were used.

Results: A total of 119 participants completed the study (71% female, 85/119; 29% male, 34/119). Cross-classification analysis showed that 79.8% of the participants were correctly classified into the same category and just 1.1% were misclassified into opposite categories. The average weighted kappa statistic was good (κ=.64).

Conclusions: The results indicate that e-EPIDEMIOLOGY generated ranks of dietary intakes that were highly comparable with the previously validated paper FFQ. However, it was noted that further testing of e-EPIDEMIOLOGY is required to establish its wider utility.

Keywords: dietary assessment; epidemiological methods; food frequency questionnaire; mobile phone application.

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

©Luis Maria Bejar, Brett Northrop Sharp, María Dolores García-Perea. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 02.11.2016.

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