Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Nutrition and Sustainable Diets
Volume 8 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1432057
This article is part of the Research Topic Advancing Sustainable Diets for Health and Environment View all 5 articles

Development and Validation of a Tool to Assess Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices Towards Diet Sustainability

Provisionally accepted
Serene Hilary Serene Hilary 1,2Samir Safi Samir Safi 3Asma B. Numan Asma B. Numan 1Souzan Zidan Souzan Zidan 1Rubina Sabir Rubina Sabir 1Carine Platat Carine Platat 1,2*
  • 1 Department of Nutrition and Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
  • 2 United Arab Emirates University, Al-Ain, United Arab Emirates
  • 3 College of Business and Economics, United Arab Emirates University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This study aimed to develop and validate an instrument, the Sustainable Diets Questionnaire (SDQ), to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice related toof sustainable diets in adult populations. A panel of four nutritionists identified 63 items through a literature review and refined them to a 54-item model for validation across four domains: Knowledge domain (K, 8 eight items), Attitude domain (A, 18 items), Practice domain (P, 16 items) and Consumption Habits domain (D, 12 items). The validation process consisted of two phases: a pilot with 86 individuals (Phase 1) and a larger study with 389 participants (Phase 2). Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted in both phases to verify model fit. In Phase 1, the initial four-factor model did not converge, indicating a need for item modification and a revised three-factor model (K domain, 8 eight items; A domain, 18 items; new P domain, 28 items). In Phase 2, theis new model showed improvement in fit indices with a Scaled Chi-Square of 2.415, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) of 0.863, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) of 0.747, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) of 0.851 and the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) was 0.066, although some indices fell below the 0.9 threshold. The Cronbach's α for the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice domains were 0.9, 0.96, and 0.897, respectively, with an overall α of 0.959. There was no significant difference between the first and second attempts of the SDQ model, indicating good test-retest reliability. There was also a significant positive correlation between the response scores of K, A and P domains (K vs A, r=0.575, p<0.001; K vs P, r=0.496, p=<0.001 and A vs P, r=0.665, p=<0.001). The study concludes that the three-factor model of SDQ is a valid and reliable tool for understanding the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of sustainable diets among adults.

    Keywords: knowledge, attitudes, Practice, Sustainable diets, sustainable nutrition, questionnaire, validity, Reliability

    Received: 13 May 2024; Accepted: 23 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Hilary, Safi, Numan, Zidan, Sabir and Platat. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Carine Platat, Department of Nutrition and Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.