Acceptability and feasibility of smartphone-assisted 24 h recalls in the Chinese population. Issue 18 (10th April 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zang, Jiajie; Song, Jun; Wang, Zhengyuan; Yao, Chunxia; Ma, Jianhong; Huang, Cuihua; Zhu, Zhenni; Smith, Lindsey P; Du, Shufa; Hua, Jenna; Seto, Edmund; Popkin, Barry M; Zou, Shurong
• Is Part Of: Public health nutrition. Volume 18:Issue 18(2015)
• Page Start: 3272
• Page End: 3277
• Publication Date: 2015-04-10
• Subjects: Dietary recall, -- Smartphone, -- Feasibility; Nutrition -- Periodicals; Nutrition policy -- Periodicals; Public health -- Periodicals; 613.2
• DOI: 10.1017/S1368980015000907
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1368-9800

Abstract

Abstract: Objective: To examine the acceptability and feasibility of using smartphone technology to assess beverage intake and evaluate whether the feasibility of smartphone use is greater among key sub-populations. Design: An acceptability and feasibility study of recording the video dietary record, the acceptability of the ecological momentary assessment (EMA), wearing smartphones and whether the videos helped participants recall intake after a cross-over validation study. Setting: Rural and urban area in Shanghai, China. Subjects: Healthy adults ( n 110) aged 20–40 years old. Results: Most participants reported that the phone was acceptable in most aspects, including that videos were easy to use (70 %), helped with recalls (77 %), EMA reminders helped them record intake (75 %) and apps were easy to understand (85 %). However, 49 % of the participants reported that they had trouble remembering to take videos of the beverages before consumption or 46 % felt embarrassed taking videos in front of others. Moreover, 72 % reported that the EMA reminders affected their consumption. When assessing overall acceptability of using smartphones, 72 % of the participants were favourable responders. There were no statistically significant differences in overall acceptability for overweight v. normal-weight participants or for rural v. urban residents. However, we did find that the overall acceptability was higher for males (81 %) than females (61 %, P =0·017). Conclusions: Our study did not find smartphone technology helped with dietary assessments in a Chinese population. However, simpler approaches, such as using photographs instead of videos, may be more feasible for enhancing 24 h dietary recalls.