Nutrition survey of Finnish rural children. VI. Methodological study comparing the 24-hour recall and the dietary history interview.

The aim of the study was to evaluate and to compare the 24-hr recall method with the dietary history method as used in a food consumption survey of children. Information on the dietary intkake was obtained by 24-hour recall from 158 children and by the history method from 134. The interviews are repeated 7 months later. In addition, 741 children were interviewed by both methods on the same occasion. The repeatability of the results was analyzed both at the individual and at the group level. The correlation coefficients between the first and second interview in terms of the individual intakes of energy and nutrients were fairly low for both methods. At the group level the results of repeated 24-hr recalls were in good agreement. The dietary history method, however, gave significantly different mean intakes when repeated. The correlation coefficients between the values obtained by the 24-hr recall and the history method varied from 0.20 (vitamin A) to 0.50 (energy). The history method gave consistently higher mean values than the 24-hr recall. Neither of the methods can be considered suitable for the measurement of an individual child's dietary intake. The 24-hr recall is preferable for food consumption surveys of groups of children.