Food group diversity indicators derived from qualitative list-based questionnaire misreported some foods compared to same indicators derived from quantitative 24-hour recall in urban Burkina Faso.

To be useful proxies of micronutrient intake at the population level in resource-limited societies, dietary diversity indicators should be simple and easy to collect in large surveys and their accuracy needs to be assessed. The present study aimed at comparing food group diversity indicators (FGI) derived from simple qualitative list-based questionnaires (qFGI) to the same indicators derived from quantitative 24-h recalls (QFGI). Both methods were administered separately on each of 3 recall days to women in 2 districts of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Data were available for a total of 526 women x recalls. This study was performed within the framework of the Women's Dietary Diversity Project, which sought to analyze the relationships between various QFGI and the mean probability of adequacy (MPA) of women's diets across 11 micronutrients. The comparison between paired qFGI and QFGI scores was made both in terms of accuracy of the reporting by the list-based questionnaire, taking the QFGI as the gold standard, and in terms of performance of indicators in predicting an MPA > 60%. Examination of paired QFGI-qFGI differences revealed that the more disaggregated the FGI, the higher were the mean differences in scores. Food groups most frequently misreported often corresponded to foods put in small quantities in sauces. Overreporting by list-based questionnaires was observed for indicators applying a 15-g minimum quantity of consumption for a group to count in the score and this may result in weaker performance in predicting the MPA. These results highlight trade-offs between accuracy and simplicity when operationalizing FGI through qualitative questionnaires.