Comparison of the effectiveness of a telephone 24-hour dietary recall method vs and in-person method among urban African-American women

Objective To examine the comparative accuracy of telephone and in-person 24 -hour dietary recall methods. Subjects One hundred eighty-five African-American females, aged 40 years an d older, recruited from Sunday church services in Baltimore City, Md. Methods Participants were trained to estimate portion size with plastic foo d models and a 2-dimensional food recall booklet. Dietary intake was then a ssessed with 2 in-person 24-hour dietary recalls and I telephone 24-hour di etary recall, all using a computer-assisted, multiple pass approach. Result s from the 2 in-person recalls were averaged and compared with the results from the telephone recall. Statistical analyses Cross-tabulation, paired t test, Pearson's correlation , chance-corrected agreement, and stepwise linear regression analyses were performed. Results There were no significant differences between the telephone and in- person methods for any nutrient. Agreement between methods was moderate for all major dietary components, with corrected correlations between methods ranging from 0.26 to 0.97 (P<.001), and kappas ranging from 0.155 to 0.372 (P<.01). Levels of low-energy reporting were high (88% telephone, 91% in-pe rson), though there were no significant differences between methods. Conclusions The telephone 24-hour dietary recall method appears to be compa rable to the standard in-person method among older African-American women. Portion-size training in person may make subsequent telephone dietary recal ls acceptable in this population.