Design aspects of 24 h recall assessments may affect the estimates of protein and potassium intake in dietary surveys.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the impact of different modes of administration (face-to-face v. telephone), recall days (first v. second), days of the week (weekday v. weekend) and interview days (1 d later v. 2 d later) on bias in protein and K intakes collected with 24 h dietary recalls (24-HDR).

DESIGN

Two non-consecutive 24-HDR (collected with standardised EPIC-Soft software) were used to estimate protein and K intakes by a face-to-face interview at the research centres and a telephone interview, and included all days of the week. Two 24 h urine collections were used to determine biomarkers of protein and K intake. The bias in intake was defined as the ratio between the 24-HDR estimate and the biomarker.

SETTING

Five centres in Belgium, Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands and Norway in the European Food Consumption Validation (EFCOVAL) study.

SUBJECTS

About 120 adults (aged 45-65 years) per centre.

RESULTS

The bias in protein intake in the Czech Republic and Norway was smaller for telephone than face-to-face interviews (P = 0·01). The second 24-HDR estimates of protein intake in France and K intake in Belgium had a larger bias than the first 24-HDR (P = 0·01 and 0·04, respectively). In the Czech Republic, protein intake estimated during weekends and K intake estimated during weekdays had a larger bias than during other days of the week (P = 0·01). In addition, K intake collected 2 d later in the Czech Republic was likely to be overestimated.

CONCLUSIONS

The biases in protein and K intakes were comparable between modes of administration, recall days, days of the week and interview days in some, but not all, study centres.