Development and psychometric properties of a questionnaire on adolescents’ home food environment

Abstract

Objective: To describe the design and psychometric assessment of the Adolescent Home Food Environment Questionnaire (Acronym in Portuguese: QAAD). Design: This was a cross-sectional study. Data were collected between August 2021 and January 2022 through self-administered questionnaires via a survey management application accessible by computer or smartphone. The instrument was subjected to analysis by a panel of experts and to a pretest that enabled the adjustment of the language and the reformulation of the questions. The psychometric evaluation included the assessment of test–retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient), internal consistency (composite reliability), structural validity (exploratory structural equation modelling and confirmatory factor analysis) and construct validity (Mann‒Whitney test; P < 0·05). The following food environment aspects were evaluated: family eating practices, food availability and accessibility, cooking equipment availability and parental feeding style. Moreover, the weekly frequency of fruit, bean and added sugar beverage consumption was assessed. Setting: A public high school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Participants: 14-to-19-year-old students (n 34 in the test‒retest reliability study; n 501 in the validation analysis). Results: The final version of the QAAD included thirty-two questions allowing the assessment of seven dimensions of the home food environment. The QAAD demonstrated satisfactory reliability (ICC ranging from 0·44 to 0·78), adequate internal consistency (composite reliability > 0·70) and satisfactory structural and construct validity. Conclusions: The careful QAAD design provided a valid, reliable and consistent instrument for characterising adolescents’ home food environments, which may provide information for tailoring and targeting healthy eating promotion actions aimed at adolescents.