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

To describe the design and psychometric assessment of the Adolescent Home Food Environment Questionnaire (Acronym in Portuguese: QAAD).

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.

A public high school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

14-to-19-year-old students (n 34 in the test‒retest reliability study; n 501 in the validation analysis).

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.

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.