The Eating Pattern Assessment Tool: a simple instrument for assessing dietary fat and cholesterol intake

This study describes the development of the self-administered Eating Pattern Assessment Tool (EPAT), which is designed to assess dietary fat and cholesterol intake and aid patients and health professionals in achieving control of blood cholesterol levels.

Test-retest reliability of the instrument over five visits and concurrent validity testing compared with 4-day food records.

The instrument was tested at multiple sites of a large manufacturing corporation using 436 adult volunteers with approximately equal proportions of men and women from three socioeconomic levels.

Development of the EPAT centered on creating an instrument that was simple and easy to use in a primary-care setting, that would provide a reliable assessment of intake of dietary fat and cholesterol among adults, and that would measure frequency of consumption of foods from high-fat and low-fat categories.

Test-retest reliability for repeated use was estimated by between-visit Pearson product-moment correlations of EPAT section scores. Concurrent validity was assessed by using product-moment correlation between EPAT section scores and mean daily B-scores obtained from 4-day food records.

Test-retest reliability estimates were 0.91 between all adjacent pairs of visits and 0.83 between visits 1 and 5 (4 months). Validity was 0.56.

The EPAT is a simple, quick, self-administered tool using an easy scoring method for accurately assessing fat and cholesterol intake. It is a reliable and valid substitute for more time-consuming food records. EPAT also provides an efficient way to monitor eating patterns of patients over time and is arranged to provide an educational message that reinforces the consumption of recommended types and numbers of servings of low-fat foods.