BACKGROUND
Mobile health (mHealth)-based healthcare may be an effective way to prevent and manage noncommunicable diseases. Dietary assessment and monitoring is an essential part of healthcare. However, to our knowledge, an instrument to assess the feasibility of mobile dietary self-monitoring applications has not been developed and/or validated in Korea.
OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to develop a questionnaire on the feasibility of mobile dietary self-monitoring applications and to perform content and construct validation studies of the questionnaire.
METHODS
We developed a draft of the feasibility questionnaire containing the items to assess overall usage, convenience, usefulness, satisfaction, and purpose of use of mobile dietary applications. The initial draft of the questionnaire contained 17 questions that included yes/no, multiple-choice and open-ended questions and 52 items on 5-point Likert scales. For content validation, 10 expert panels evaluated the relevance of the items for each subscale using a 5-point scale. We calculated the item-level content validity index (I-CVI) and scale-level content validity index (S-CVI). To examine the construct validity of items regarding convenience, usefulness, satisfaction, and purpose of use, we conducted a principal component analysis for each subscale with a sample of 102 adults who had experience using a mobile dietary self-monitoring application. We measured the reliability of validated items using Cronbach’s alpha.
RESULTS
The S-CVI score of the questions and items on the questionnaire was 0.86. Items that received an I-CVI score less than 0.8 were removed. We combined, revised, or separated some remaining questions and items and added one question according to the experts’ comments. As a result, 16 questions (overall usage of mobile dietary application) and 42 items (convenience: 19, usefulness: 12, satisfaction: 6, and purpose of use: 5) remained. We performed a principal component analysis for 42 items of convenience, usefulness, satisfaction, and purpose of use and retained items loading at least 0.40, resulting in 36 items (convenience: 17, usefulness: 11, satisfaction: 5, and purpose of use: 3). The Cronbach’s alpha values of those 36 items were 0.96. As a consequence, the questionnaire contains 16 questions, plus 36 items.
CONCLUSIONS
We developed a questionnaire on the feasibility of mobile dietary self-monitoring applications and performed content and construct validation of the questionnaire. Our questionnaire has the potential to be utilized to measure the feasibility of mobile dietary self-monitoring applications.
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