Reproducibility and Validity of a Semiquantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire Among Military Men

Objective: a food frequency questionnaire (SFFQ) was developed to rank military men in tertiles of nutritional intake. Design: validation study. Subjects: 95 military men. Methods: two SFFQ's (SFFQ1 and SFFQ2) were collected with 2-week intervals. Four-day dietary records (4DDRs) were collected between the SFFQs. Results: the correlation coefficients for energy adjusted nutrients between SFFQ1 and SFFQ2 ranged between 0.42 (vitamin A) to 0.79 (total energy intake). The correlation coefficients between SFFQ1 and 4DDR ranged from 0.05 (vitamin A) to 0.50 (total energy intake). The correlation coefficients between SFFQ2 and 4DDR ranged from 0.01 (vitamin A) to 0.52 (total energy intake). The percentage of individuals classified in the same tertile comparing SFFQ1 and 4DDR ranged from 33.7% (vitamin A) to 52.6% (total alcohol intake). Conclusion: our SFFQ has a good reproducibility and an acceptable validity to rank individuals according to dietary intake.