Design of a self-administered online food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to assess dietary intake among university population.

OBJECTIVE: To introduce and describe a new tool called UPV-FFQ to evaluate dietary intake of the university population. The new tool consists principally in a self-administered online food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). MATERIALS AND METHODS: The tool UPV-FFQ has been developed by means of web pages applying the technology ASP.NET 2.0 and using the database SQL Server 2005 as support. To develop the FFQ has been used as model the paper and pencil FFQ called "Dieta, salud y antropometría en la población universitaria". RESULTS: The tool has three parts: (1) a homepage, (2) a general questionnaire and (3) a FFQ. The FFQ has a closed list of 84 food items commonly consumed in Valencia region. The respondents has to indicate the food items that they consume (2 possible options), the frequency of consumption (9 response options) and the quantity consumed (7 response options). The UPV-FFQ has approximately 250 color photographs that represents to three portion sizes. The photographs are useful to help the respondents to choose the portion sizes that more adjusts to their habitual portions. The new tool provides quantitative information of the habitual intake of 31 nutritional parameters and provides qualitative information of the general questionnaire. A pilot study was done for a total of 57 respondents. The media time spend to fill in was 15 minutes. CONCLUSIONS: The pilot study concluded that the questionnaire was ease-of-use, low cost and time-effectiveness questionnaire. The format and the sequence of the questions were easily understood.