Development of a general nutrition knowledge questionnaire for adults

Area of Science:

• Nutrition Science
• Psychometrics
• Health Education

Background:

• Assessing nutritional knowledge in UK adults is crucial for public health.
• Previous understanding of the relationship between nutrition knowledge and dietary behavior has been limited.
• A validated instrument is needed to accurately measure nutritional understanding.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a comprehensive questionnaire for assessing nutritional knowledge in UK adults.
• To identify specific areas where nutritional understanding is weak.
• To facilitate research on the connection between nutrition knowledge and dietary practices.

Main Methods:

• Item generation focused on content validity.
• Initial piloting and psychometric assessment led to exclusion of invalid items.
• The final 50-item questionnaire underwent construct validity and test-retest reliability testing with distinct groups.

Main Results:

• The questionnaire demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.70-0.97).
• Test-retest reliability exceeded the minimum requirement of 0.7.
• Nutrition experts significantly outperformed computer experts, confirming good construct validity.

Conclusions:

• The developed questionnaire meets rigorous psychometric standards for reliability and construct validity.
• This validated instrument is suitable for future studies reassessing the nutrition knowledge-dietary behavior relationship.