Reproducibility of a short semi-quantitative food group questionnaire and its performance in estimating nutrient intake compared with a 7-day diet diary in the Million Women Study

Objectives: To assess the short- and long-term reproducibility of a short food group questionnaire, and to compare its performance for estimating nutrient intakes in comparison with a 7-day diet diary. Design: Participants for the reproducibility study completed the food group questionnaire at two time points, up to 2 years apart. Participants for the performance study completed both the food group questionnaire and a 7-day diet diary a few months apart. Reproducibility was assessed by kappa statistics and percentage change between the two questionnaires; performance was assessed by kappa statistics, rank correlations and percentages of participants classified into the same and opposite thirds of intake. Setting: A random sample of participants in the Million Women Study, a population-based prospective study in the UK. Subjects: In total, 12 221 women aged 50-64 years. Results: in the reproducibility study, 75% of the food group items showed at least moderate agreement for all four time-point comparisons. Items showing fair agreement or worse tended to be those where few respondents reported eating them more than once a week, those consumed in small amounts and those relating to types of fat consumed. Compared with the diet diary, the food group questionnaire showed consistently reasonable performance for the nutrients carbohydrate, saturated fat, cholesterol, total sugars, alcohol, fibre, calcium, riboflavin, folate and vitamin C. Conclusions: The short food group questionnaire used in this study has been shown to be reproducible over time and to perform reasonably well for the assessment of a number of dietary nutrients.

Development and reliability of a self-report questionnaire to examine children's perceptions of the physical activity environment at home and in the neighbourhood

Background: Environmental factors are increasingly being implicated as key influences on children's physical activity. Few studies have comprehensively examined children's perceptions of their environment, and there is a paucity of literature on acceptable and reliable scales for measuring these. This study aimed to develop and test the acceptability and reliability of a scale which examined a broad range of environmental perceptions among children.
Methods: Based on constructs from ecological models, a survey incorporating items on children's perceptions of the physical and social environment at home and in the neighbourhood was developed. This was administered on two occasions, nine days apart, to a sample of 39 children aged 11 years (54% boys), attending a metropolitan Australian elementary school. The acceptability of the survey was determined by the proportion of missing responses to each item. The test-retest reliability of individual items, scores and scales were determined using Kappa statistics and percent agreement for categorical variables, and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) for continuous variables.
Results: There were few missing responses to each question, with only 4% of all responses missing. Although some Kappa values were low, all categorical variables showed acceptable reliability when examined for percent agreement between test and retest (range 68%–100% agreement). Continuous variables all showed moderate to good ICC values (range 0.72–0.92).
Conclusion: Findings suggest this questionnaire is reliable and acceptable to children for assessing environmental perceptions relevant to physical activity among 11-year-old children.

Associations between the home food environment and obesity-promoting eating behaviors in adolescence

Objective: This study examines relationships between multiple aspects of the home food environment and obesity-promoting characteristics of 12- to 13-year-old adolescents' diets, specifically frequency of consumption of high-energy fluids, sweet snacks, savory snacks, and take-out foods.

Research Methods: This was a cross-sectional study including 347 adolescents 12 to 13 years of age and their parents. Data were collected via self-completed surveys. The adolescents' diets were assessed using a Food Frequency Questionnaire derived from existing age-appropriate National Nutrition Survey data. An extensive range of domains within the home food environment were assessed. Bivariate linear regression analyses were run split by gender. Forced entry multiple linear regression analyses (adjusting for all variables significant in bivariate analyses as well as for maternal education) were also performed, stratified by the sex of the child.

Results: The influence of mothers, either as models for eating behaviors or as the providers of food, was pervasive. Mothers' intake of high-energy fluids (p = 0.003), sweet snacks (p = 0.010), savory snacks (p = 0.008), and take-out food (p = 0.007) was positively associated with boys' intake of all these foods. In addition, mothers' intake of high-energy fluids was positively associated with daughters' consumption of these drinks (p = 0.025). Furthermore, availability of unhealthy foods at home was positively associated with girls' sweet snack (p = 0.001), girls' savory snack (p < 0.001), boys' savory snack (p = 0.002), and, in the bivariate analyses, girls' high-energy fluid consumption (p = 0.002).

Discussion: This study of home food environment influences on adolescent diet highlights the pervasive influence of mothers in determining adolescents' obesity-promoting eating, providing direction for obesity prevention strategies and future research.

Job satisfaction versus office environment : influences on academic knowledge worker productivity

This research paper provides a more encompassing review of self-assessment of a variety of knowledge worker activities, as well as providing the basis for these self assessments. A novel aspect is the inclusion of motivational affects which are considered alongside work environment influences on productivity. A questionnaire was administered on 25 academics. The group was questioned for their perceptions of their productivity for a range of their everyday activities and what areas of their work environment enhanced or disrupted their productivity. Job satisfaction was also assessed. The results from a series of self-assessments show that on the whole, the sample perceive themselves to be reasonably to very productive in all tasks undertaken. Staff satisfaction measures are generally very positive with collaboration and job enjoyment being motivational factors for this group. Noise levels, thermal conditions, poor lighting and a lack of storage seem to be the biggest inhibitors of productivity. Having a window to look out of and access to natural light seem to enhance an academics view of their productivity.

Adolescent’s cultural identity and neighbourhood environment

Objective: this study aims to find out how adolescents in Australia identify themselves culturally, and how adolescents from different cultural groups differ in their assessments of their neighbourhood environments. Methods: one hundred and sixty-six adolescents in Sydney completed a self-administered questionnaire, which collected information of their neighbourhood environments and their cultural backgrounds. Results: adolescents reported a great variety (67) of different cultural backgrounds, clustered into three cultural groups: Australian cultural identity group, Heritage cultural group, and Biculturalism group. Although no significant difference was found on most neighbourhood environment factors between the cultural groups, adolescents from Heritage cultural group scored significantly lower on the factor Vegetation & Facilities. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that the overall neighbourhood environments for adolescents from different cultural groups are satisfactory. However, ethnic minority adolecents live in neighbourhoods with less vegetation and facilities, which suggest that spatial inequity related to ethnic backgrounds still exist in Australia.

Effect of questionnaire length, personalisation and reminder type on response rate to a complex postal survey : randomised controlled trial

Background: Minimising participant non-response in postal surveys helps to maximise the generalisability of the inferences made from the data collected. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of questionnaire length, personalisation and reminder type on postal survey response rate and quality and to compare the costeffectiveness of the alternative survey strategies.
Methods: In a pilot study for a population study of travel behaviour, physical activity and the environment, 1000 participants sampled from the UK edited electoral register were randomly allocated using a 2 × 2 factorial design to receive one of four survey packs: a personally addressed long (24 page) questionnaire pack, a personally addressed short (15 page) questionnaire pack, a non-personally addressed long questionnaire pack or a nonpersonally addressed short questionnaire pack. Those who did not return a questionnaire were stratified by initial randomisation group and further randomised to receive either a full reminder pack or a reminder postcard. The effects of the survey design factors on response were examined using multivariate logistic regression.
Results: An overall response rate of 17% was achieved. Participants who received the short version of the questionnaire were more likely to respond (OR = 1.48, 95% CI 1.06 to 2.07). In those participants who received a reminder, personalisation of the survey pack and reminder also increased the odds of response (OR = 1.44, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.95). Item non-response was relatively low, but was significantly higher in the long questionnaire than the short (9.8% vs 5.8%; p = .04). The cost per additional usable questionnaire returned of issuing the reminder packs was £23.1 compared with £11.3 for the reminder postcards.
Conclusions: In contrast to some previous studies of shorter questionnaires, this trial found that shortening a relatively lengthy questionnaire significantly increased the response. Researchers should consider the trade off between the value of additional questions and a larger sample. If low response rates are expected, personalisation may be an important strategy to apply. Sending a full reminder pack to non-respondents appears a worthwhile, albeit more costly, strategy.

Understanding neighborhood environment related to Hong Kong children's physical activity: a qualitative study using nominal group technique

Relationships between the neighborhood environment and children's physical activity have been well documented in Western countries but are less investigated in ultra-dense Asian cities. The aim of this study was to identify the environmental facilitators and barriers of physical activity behaviors among Hong Kong Chinese children using nominal group technique.

THE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT OF A RESEARCH GROUP: THE TUTORS' PERSPECTIVE

The Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisas de Tecnologia da Informacao nos Processos de Trabalho em Enfermagem (Study and Research Group for Information Technology in the Nursing Working Processes, GEPETE) has the purpose of producing and socializing knowledge in information technology and health and nursing communication, making associations with research groups in this field and promoting student participation. This study was performed by the group tutors with the objective to report on the development of the virtual learning environment (VLE) and the tutors' experience as mediators of a research group using the Moodle platform. To do this, a VLE was developed and pedagogical mediation was performed following the theme of mentoring. An initial diagnosis was made of the difficulties in using this technology in interaction and communication, which permitted the proposal of continuing to use the platform as a resource to support research activities, offer lead researchers the mechanisms to socialize projects and offer the possibility of giving advice at a distance.

Factors influencing the decision for Baha in unilateral deafness: the Bern benefit in single-sided deafness questionnaire

The data of 46 adults with single-sided sensorineural deafness who were candidates for bone-anchored hearing aids (Baha) CROS (contralateral routing of signals) were analyzed. All candidates tested a Baha with a headband in their normal environment. Subsequently, 29 of the candidates chose a permanent Baha CROS fitting, and 17 declined, thus forming the two study groups. No significant difference regarding age, sex or duration of deafness was found between the two groups. Similarly, the transcranial attenuation was not significantly different between those who accepted and declined a Baha. Subjects with some residual hearing in their poorer ear tended to decline a Baha, but the effect was not statistically significant. For a subset of 28 subjects, the Bern Benefit in Single-Sided Deafness questionnaire was administered. The questionnaire consists of 10 visual analogue scales rating the subjectively perceived benefit of the Baha or any other CROS device in different situations. Scores were found to be significantly higher for speech understanding at some distance (p = 0.026), for speech understanding in noise (p = 0.037), for group conversations (p < 0.01), and for the overall benefit (p < 0.01) for those candidates who chose to use a Baha as a CROS device permanently.

An investigation into the factors that encourage learner participation in a large group medical classroom

BACKGROUND: Effective lectures often incorporate activities that encourage learner participation. A challenge for educators is how to facilitate this in the large group lecture setting. This study investigates the individual student characteristics involved in encouraging (or dissuading) learners to interact, ask questions, and make comments in class. METHODS: Students enrolled in a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, St Kitts, were invited to complete a questionnaire canvassing their participation in the large group classroom. Data from the questionnaire were analyzed using Excel (Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) and the R software environment (http://www.r-project.org/). RESULTS: One hundred and ninety-two students completed the questionnaire (response rate, 85.7%). The results showed statistically significant differences between male and female students when asked to self-report their level of participation (P=0.011) and their confidence to participate (P<0.001) in class. No statistically significant difference was identified between different age groups of students (P=0.594). Student responses reflected that an "aversion to public speaking" acted as the main deterrent to participating during a lecture. Female participants were 3.56 times more likely to report a fear of public speaking than male participants (odds ratio 3.56, 95% confidence interval 1.28-12.33, P=0.01). Students also reported "smaller sizes of class and small group activities" and "other students participating" as factors that made it easier for them to participate during a lecture. CONCLUSION: In this study, sex likely played a role in learner participation in the large group veterinary classroom. Male students were more likely to participate in class and reported feeling more confident to participate than female students. Female students in this study commonly identified aversion to public speaking as a factor which held them back from participating in the large group lecture setting. These are important findings for veterinary and medical educators aiming to improve learner participation in the classroom. Potential ways of addressing this challenge include addition of small group activities and audience response systems during lectures, and inclusion of training interventions in public speaking at an early stage of veterinary and medical curricula.