Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Dietary intake information is key to understanding nutrition-related outcomes. Intake changes with age and some older people are at increased risk of malnutrition. Application, difficulties, and advantages of the 24-hour multiple pass recall (24hr-MPR) dietary assessment method in three cohorts of advanced age in the United Kingdom (UK) and New Zealand (NZ) is described.PARTICIPANTS: The Newcastle 85+ study (UK) recruited a single year birth cohort of people aged 85 years during 2006-7. LiLACS NZ recruited a 10-year birth cohort of Maori (indigenous New Zealanders) aged 80-90 years and a single year birth cohort of non-Maori aged 85 years in 2010.MEASUREMENTS: Two 24hr-MPR were conducted on nonconsecutive days by trained assessors. Pictorial resources and language were adapted for the New Zealand and Maori contexts. Detailed methods are described.RESULTS: In the Newcastle 85+ study, 805 (93%) participants consented to the 24-MPR, 95% of whom completed two 24hr-MPR; in LiLACS NZ, 218 (82%) consented and 203 (76%) Maori and 353 (90%) non-Maori completed two 24hr-MPR. Mean time to complete each 24hr-MPR was 22 minutes in the Newcastle 85+ study, and 45 minutes for Maori and 39 minutes for non-Maori in LiLACS NZ. Dietary assessment of participants residing in residential care and those requiring proxy respondents were successfully included in both studies. Most participants (83-94%) felt that data captured by the 24hr-MPR reflected their usual dietary intake.CONCLUSIONS: Dietary assessment using 24hr-MPR was successful in capturing detailed dietary data including information on portion size and time of eating for over 1300 octogenarians in the UK and New Zealand (Maori and nonMaori). The 24hr-MPR is an acceptable method of dietary assessment in this age group.