Development and validation of the Perceived Food Environment Questionnaire in a French-Canadian population.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: The present study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire assessing perceived food environment in a French-Canadian population. DESIGN: A questionnaire, the Perceived Food Environment Questionnaire, was developed assessing perceived accessibility to healthy (nine items) and unhealthy foods (three items). A pre-test sample was recruited for a pilot testing of the questionnaire. For the validation study, another sample was recruited and completed the questionnaire twice. Exploratory factor analysis was performed on the items to assess the number of factors (subscales). Cronbach's α was used to measure internal consistency reliability. Test-retest reliability was assessed with Pearson correlations. SETTING: Online survey. SUBJECTS: Men and women from the Québec City area (n 31 in the pre-test sample; n 150 in the validation study sample). RESULTS: The pilot testing did not lead to any change in the questionnaire. The exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-subscale structure. The first subscale is composed of six items assessing accessibility to healthy foods and the second includes three items related to accessibility to unhealthy foods. Three items were removed from the questionnaire due to low loading on the two subscales. The subscales demonstrated adequate internal consistency (Cronbach's α=0·77 for healthy foods and 0·62 for unhealthy foods) and test-retest reliability (r=0·59 and 0·60, respectively; both P<0·0001). CONCLUSIONS: The Perceived Food Environment Questionnaire was developed for a French-Canadian population and demonstrated good psychometric properties. Further validation is recommended if the questionnaire is to be used in other populations.