Turkish version of the 'food and nutrition literacy questionnaire for Chinese school-age children' for school-age adolescents: a validity and reliability study

Background In this study, it was aimed to examine the psychometric characteristics of the scale named 'Food and Nutrition Literacy Questionnaire for Chinese School-age Children (FNLQ-SC)' in Turkish school age adolescents. Methods The research was carried out with 341 school-age adolescents aged 10 to 17 years. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to evaluate internal consistency reliability and the test-retest method was applied. The construct validity was assessed by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and the content validity was assessed by the Pearson correlation coefficient. Results EFA indicated that the Turkish version of FNLQ-SC had three factorial structures that accounted for 42.0% of the total variance. The overall Turkish version of FNLQ-SC questionnaire had acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.679). The dimensional structure obtained in the EFA was controlled by CFA and the three-factor model showed acceptable goodness-of-fit indices (chi 2/df = 1.924, RMSEA = 0.052, CFI = 0.864, GFI = 0.949). The Pearson correlation coefficients between each dimension and the overall questionnaire ranged from 0.300 to 0.842. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that age, gender, grade of class, being an only child and discussing nutrition information with families had an effect on food and nutrition literacy (R-2 = 0.312; p < 0.001). Conclusion The Turkish version of FNLQ-SC has good reliability and construct validity to assess the food and nutrition literacy of Turkish school age adolescents.