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Factors Related to the Accuracy of Self-Reported Dietary Intake of Children Aged 6 to 12 Years Elicited with Interviews: A Systematic Review

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Abstract

Background

Understanding the relationship between children’s dietary consumption and health is important. As such, it is crucial to explore factors related to the accuracy of children’s reports of what they consumed.

Objective

The objective was to evaluate factors related to the accuracy of self-reported dietary intake information elicited by interview methods from children aged 6 to 12 years.

Methods

A systematic review of English articles using PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, PsycEXTRA, PsycBOOKS, CINAHL Complete, Global Health, and MEDLINE Complete was performed. Search terms included interview, diet, children, and recall; studies were limited to those published from 1970 onward. Additional studies were identified using the reference lists of published articles. Studies that assessed children’s dietary intake using direct observation, doubly labeled water, or the double-portion method and compared it with their recall of that intake (unassisted by parents) using an interview were included.

Results

The 45 studies that met the inclusion criteria showed that specific interview techniques designed to enhance children’s recall accuracy had little effect. Rather, the timing of the interview appeared most important: The shorter the retention interval between children’s consumption and their recall, the more accurate their memories. Children’s age, body mass index, social desirability, food preferences, and cognitive ability were also related to accuracy.

Conclusions

Factors related to the accuracy of children’s dietary reporting should be taken into consideration when asking about consumption. Further research is required to examine whether other interview techniques, such as those developed to enhance children’s recall of repeated staged events, can improve children’s dietary reporting accuracy.

Section snippets

Method

No protocol for this review has been published. This review was informed by the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines.15

Study Selection

Database searches returned 462 records, which were reduced to 427 after removing duplicates (see Figure 2). An additional 382 records were removed after reviewing the titles and abstracts. The full text of the remaining 45 articles was read in entirety to determine eligibility. The references lists of these articles yielded another 12 articles that were also read in their entirety. Of these 57 articles, 14 were excluded because they did not meet the inclusion criteria. The remaining 43 articles

Discussion

Our systematic review included and evaluated 45 studies assessing factors related to the accuracy of recall of dietary intake by of children aged 6 to 12 years. Although many child-related variables, such as age, BMI, social desirability, food preferences, and cognitive ability showed significant relationships with accuracy, interview factors—apart from retention interval—had smaller effects. Studies in which retention interval was manipulated consistently demonstrated that the longer the delay

Conclusions

The overall goal of our systematic review was to determine the factors related to the accuracy of children’s dietary recall established using interview methods and to provide directions for future research. Studies conducted have tended to focus on children aged 9 to 10 years, and have focused only on variations of the 24hrDR method to assess children's dietary intake. Further research is required to expand our knowledge using different interview techniques to improve recall accuracy.

S. J. Sharman is a senior lecturer, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

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    S. J. Sharman is a senior lecturer, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

    H. Skouteris is a professor, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

    M. B. Powell is a personal chair, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

    B. Watson is a research assistant, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

    STATEMENT OF POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

    FUNDING/SUPPORT There is no funding to disclose.

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