Test-retest reliability of a new questionnaire on the diet and eating behavior of one year old children

BACKGROUND: As part of a sub-study in the ongoing Norwegian RCT ‘Fit for Delivery’, a new questionnaire, using a combination of food frequency, scale, and categorical questions to gather data on the diets and eating patterns of one year olds, was developed and tested for reliability by test-retest. RESULTS: Of 102 parents recruited to the study, 94 completed both test and retest. Correlation coefficients (Spearman’s r, and/or Cohen’s kappa, where applicable) were high for all categories of question, with a mean value of 0.72 for Spearman’s r for food frequency variables, and a mean value of 0.75 for Cohen’s kappa for non-numeric variables such as breast feeding status, showing very high test-retest reliability. CONCLUSIONS: This newly developed diet and eating habit questionnaire had strong test-retest reliability in a test population similar to the study population, for which it was developed. This indicates that the questionnaire is reliable in this population. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-014-0966-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.