Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 30, 2026
'Boden Food Plate': Novel Interactive Web-based Method for the Assessment of Dietary Intake
Published on: September 18, 2018
Validity of two short screeners for diet quality in time-limited settings
Helmut Schröder1, Alejandra Benitez Arciniega, Cristina Soler
1Cardiovascular Risk and Nutrition Research Group (CARIN-ULEC), Program of Research in Inflammatory and Cardiovascular Disorders (RICAD), IMIM-Hospital del Mar, Biomedical Research Park, c/Doctor Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. hschroeder@imim.es
Objective:
An urgent need in dietary assessment is the development of short tools that provide valid assessments of dietary quality for use in time-limited settings. The present study assessed concurrent and construct validity of the short Diet Quality Screener (sDQS) and brief Mediterranean Diet Screener (bMDSC) questionnaires.
Design:
Relative validity was measured by comparing three dietary quality indices--the Diet Quality Index (DQI), the modified Mediterranean Diet Score (mMDS) and the Antioxidant Score (ANTOX-S)--derived from the two questionnaires with those from multiple 24 h recalls over 12 months. Construct validity was demonstrated by correlations between average nutrient intake recorded on multiple 24 h recalls and the DQI, mMDS and ANTOX-S derived by the short screeners.
Setting:
Both short questionnaires were administered to 102 participants recruited from a population-based survey in Spain.
Results:
DQI, mMDS and ANTOX-S correlated (P < 0·001) with the corresponding 24 h recall indices (r = 0·61, 0·40 and 0·45, respectively). Limits of agreement lay between 96 and 126%, 59 and 144% and 61 and 118% for the DQI, ANTOX-S and mMDS, respectively. Dietary intakes of fibre, vitamin C, vitamin E, Mg and K reported on the 24 h recalls were positively associated (P < 0·04) with the DQI, mMDS and ANTOX-S indices.
Conclusions:
The sDQS and bMDSC provide reasonable approximations to food-based dietary indices and accurately situate subjects within the indices constructed for the present validation study.
