Reliability of a dietary questionnaire

Abstract

A reliability test was performed on a Burke-type dietary questionnaire by reinterviewing a group of 60 male and female subjects 40 years of age or over. The reliability of the questionnaire did not vary in the different sex and country of birth groups. None of the mean values for the food items was significantly different in the two interviews. The correlation coefficients varied in males between 0.51 (linoleic acid) and 0.85 (sugar and fruit), and in females between 0.57 (total carbohydrates) and 0.90 (saturated fatty acids). In addition, variability of the diet did not affect the reliabiity.