Evaluation of the reliability and validity of the Brazilian Healthy Eating Index Revised

OBJECTIVE: Evaluate validity and reliability of the Brazilian Healthy Eating Index Revised according to the psychometric properties. METHODS: Cross-sectional study of a random sample of 2,375 individuals of both sexes, aged 12 or older from the city of Sao Paulo, SP, Southeastern Brazil, drawn from the Health Survey carried out in 2003. Information on the population characteristics was acquired using a questionnaire. Food intake was obtained using 24h Recall, used to calculate the Brazilian Healthy Eating Index Revised (BHEI-R). The following aspects were evaluated: (1) content validity, by comparing the components with the Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population; (2) construct validity, factor analysis using principal components method and verifying whether the index can measure diet quality regardless of energy intake; (3) discriminating validity; and (4) the reliability of the BHEI-R by analyzing the internal consistency of the items using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. RESULTS: The correlations between the component scores and energy intake were weak (r < 0.30). Principal component analysis indicated the presence of four factors with eigenvalues > 1 that represented 67% of the index variance. The discriminating validity of the BHEI-R was observed by comparing the individuals by sex and smoking habit, and identifying statistically significant differences between the means of the components of the BHEI-R and the final score. The Cronbach's alpha value (a = 0.7) indicated the presence of internal consistency between the components of the BHEI-R. The SoFAAS component followed by the total fruit component and whole fruit component presented greater correlation with the final index scores. CONCLUSIONS: The Brazilian Healthy Eating Index Revised showed itself to be reliable and structurally valid when used to evaluate and monitor the diet quality of Brazilians.