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Abstract

Medicine

Mobile Device-assisted Dietary Ecological Momentary Assessments for the Evaluation of the Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet in a Continuous Manner

Published: September 25th, 2021

DOI:

10.3791/62161

1Integrative Pharmacology and Systems Neurosciences Research Group, Neurosciences Research Program, Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), 2Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, University Pompeu Fabra, 3CIBER de Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y la Nutrición (CIBEROBN), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 4Cardiovascular Risk and Nutrition Research Group, Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), 5CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), 6Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC), Pasqual Maragall Foundation

Abstract

Mobile device-assisted dietary ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) have emerged as a new tool allowing the evaluation of dietary intake in real time, in a real-world setting and in a continuous manner. They have the potential to minimize recall bias, participant, and investigator burden, and decrease economic and time investment while maximizing ecological validity.

We developed a set of EMAs aimed at evaluating continuous adherence to the MedDiet. Four multiple-choice EMAs are sent daily in a randomized manner from a total of eight questions. The EMAs enquire about the consumption of 11 key food groups of the Mediterranean diet in the last 24-48 h in a semi-quantitative way. EMAs capture the daily frequency of consumption of fruits, vegetables, and extra virgin olive oil on different days of the week. Additionally, EMAs capture the weekly frequency of consumption of whole grain products, sugary drinks, nuts, legumes, sweets, fish and seafood, and red and processed meats. A designed scoring system behind the EMAs extracts the percentage of adherence to the MedDiet recommendations and calculates a quality index of the diet every week. Individualized reports are sent periodically to the volunteers highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of their diet. EMAs are also expected to have a behavioral effect, reinforcing the choice of Mediterranean foods.

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Keywords Mobile Device

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