Convergent Validity of DABQ Questionnaire

Summary

Time-use epidemiology is a rapidly growing research area that aims to understand how individuals allocate their time to various activities throughout the day. Accurate assessment of daily activity behaviors, such as sleep, sedentary behavior (SB), light physical activity (LPA), and moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA), is crucial for studying the associations between activity patterns and health outcomes. To gather this information, researchers often rely on self-report questionnaires and objective measures, such as accelerometers, to provide a comprehensive understanding of individuals' activity levels.

Recently, a validated questionnaire known as the Daily Activity Behavior Questionnaire (DABQ) has been developed. In a study comparing DABQ estimates with the activPAL4 accelerometer (as the reference method), good results regarding absolute agreement and consistency were obtained for sleep duration (ICC 0.6), while the absolute agreement and consistency for SB, LPA, and MVPA estimates was lower (ICC ranging from 0.22-0.47).

It should be noted that this study acknowledges the limitation of not treating the data as compositional data. Compositional data analysis accounts for the relative distribution of different activities and avoids the assumption of independence between behaviors. Additionally, the activPAL4 accelerometer used as the reference method in the study had its own strengths and weaknesses when compared to other objective measures, such as the Actigraph. Where ActivPAL4 is more used to differentiate between sitting and standing, Actigraph is able to better classify activity intensities. Moreover, as recommended in different research, I use the Actigraph in my PhD to objectively asses 24-hour movement behaviors.

Given these considerations, the aim of this study is to validate the DABQ against the Actigraph as the reference method. Furthermore, this study aims to analyze the data as compositional data, which would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the interrelatedness of behaviors. The hypothesis is that there will be moderate convergent validity between the DABQ and Actigraph, allowing for accurate assessment of sleep duration, SB, LPA, and MVPA. By establishing the validity of the DABQ and considering the data as compositional, researchers can utilize this questionnaire in time-use epidemiology studies, which could be seen as an easy to use and cost-effective measurement method.

Conditions

• Health Behavior

Interventions

DEVICE

DABQ questionnaire versus Actigraph as reference method

In this study, participants will have one contact session with the researcher, which will be held either at Ghent University Hospital or at the participants' home. During this session, participants will be provided with an accelerometer device and two questionnaires (to be filled in after wearing the Actigraph), namely the Daily Activity Behavior Questionnaire (DABQ) and general information questionnaire. The participants will receive an Actigraph wGT3X+BT accelerometer which will be worn for seven consecutive days. Instructions will be given on how to wear the accelerometer (e.g. during the day at the hip and during the night at the wrist). At the end of this week, the participants will fill in both questionnaires. After wearing the accelerometer for seven consecutive days and filling in both questionnaires, the researcher will visit the participants to collect the devices, or the participants will send them back by postal package.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University Ghent

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Marieke De Craemer · University Ghent

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-09-30

Primary Completion

2024-07-01

Completion

2024-07-01

Countries

• Belgium

Study Locations