Applying conversation analysis to foster accurate reporting in the diet history interview

Inaccuracy in reporting dietary intakes is a major problem in managing diet -related disease. There is no single best method of dietary assessment, but the diet history lends itself well to the. clinical setting. In many diet histories data are collected orally, so analysis of interviews can provide insights into reporting behaviors. Conversation analysis is a qualitative m ethod that describes the systematic organization of talk between people. Pa tterns are identified and checked for consistency within and among individu al interviews. The aim of this study was to describe consistent ways of rep orting diet histories and to identify conversational features of problemati c reporting. Diet history interviews from 62 overweight, and insulin-resist ant adult volunteers (50 women, 12 men) attending an outpatient clinic and 14 healthy volunteers (7 men, 7 women) participating in an energy balance s tudy were audiotaped and transcribed. Conversation analysis identified a re markably consistent pattern of reporting diet histories and 3 conversationa l features that indicated problematic reporting: "it depends," denoting var iability (least of all at breakfast);"probably," suggesting guesswork (rela ted to portion sizes); and elaborated talk on certain foods, distinguishing sensitive topics (eg, alcohol, chocolate, butter/margarine, take-out foods ) from safe topics, These findings indicate that there are ways in which di etetics practitioners may conduct the diet history interview to foster more accurate reporting.