摘要：Iodine deficiency is a major public health problem throughout the world. Malaysia's latest IDD survey in 2008 showed that 12.5% of the school children had urinary iodine above adequate requirement ( > 200 μg/L), where 7.6% were above the adequate value (200-299 μg/L) and 4.9% were excessive ( > 300 μ/L) particularly in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya (19.9%) and Sabah (16.6%). Socio-demography, environment and dietary are three main factors contributing to an increase in the prevalence of high urinary iodine in a population. Therefore, this study was conducted to validate an interview-based semi-quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) with 24h dietary recall method on iodine nutrition for use in future studies in Malaysia particularly among school children. A total of 35 healthy euthyroid consented school children in the Federal Territory of Putrajaya were enrolled in the study. Each subject completed 24h dietary recall, followed by an interview-based food frequency questionnaire to assess dietary iodine intake. A standardized coloured book containing photos of food high in iodine and household measuring tools were used to help the respondents in answering the questions. Daily iodine intake was calculated for each participant in both FFQ and 24h dietary recall. Median daily iodine intake was 423.95±225.49 μg/L from the interview-based FFQ and 436.45±217.37 μg/L in the 24h dietary recall. The iodine content from the 24h dietary recall was strongly correlated with the iodine content from the interview-based FFQ where r = 0.954. It is concluded that the semi-quantitative FFQ is sufficiently reliable to inquire the daily iodine intake of school children.
