Validity and reliability of children's eating behaviour trait questionnaire tools adapted for use in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review.

The reliability and validity of children's eating behaviour trait questionnaires is critical for accurately measuring and understanding children's eating behaviours among diverse populations and for developing targeted nutritional and behavioural interventions, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This review was conducted with the aim of investigating current evidence on the validity and reliability of child eating behaviour trait questionnaires, initially developed or used in high-income countries, when adapted for use among children aged 2 to 12 years in low- and middle-income countries. Systematic literature searches were conducted in MEDLINE Complete, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science, Global Health, and PsycINFO. Studies investigating the validity and reliability of the most commonly used children's eating behaviour questionnaire tools in low- and middle-income countries, and conducted from January 2001 were considered for inclusion in the review. Title and abstract screening of the studies was followed by full text screening by two independent reviewers. 24 studies were included in the review. A majority of the studies (n = 13 studies) examined the Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire, with fewer studies investigating the psychometric properties of the other child eating behaviour trait questionnaire tools. The evidence for the validity and reliability of the questionnaires in low- and middle-income countries was mostly limited to construct validity (n = 18 studies) and internal reliability (n = 24 studies) analysis. Future studies should conduct more comprehensive psychometric evaluations of other adapted questionnaires and develop new instruments tailored to assessing children's eating behaviour traits in low- and middle-income countries.