Comparison of a computerized and a manual method of food coding for nutrient intake studies

The Dietary Data Collection (DDC) microcomputer system is currently being developed as a tool for the standardized and detailed collection of dietary intake data for human nutrition research studies. The system operates interactively, soliciting all necessary information on menu selection screens to ensure user entry of complete food descriptions and quantity information. The descriptive data are then automatically converted to food codes and gram weights for subsequent calculation of nutrient content. At the completion of the first phase of system development, a preliminary test was performed to compare the amount of time required to enter food intake data into the DDC system with the amount of time required to accomplish the same food coding task manually. Test subjects consisted of four experienced food coders and one coder trainee. Using a crossover design, each coder manually coded 16 1-day food records and entered another 16 records into the DDC system for automatic coding. Four of the five coders took significantly less time to code and enter descriptive dietary intake information using the DDC system than they took for manual coding and data entry. Time savings ranged between 9% and 44% among the test subjects.