Development and Evaluation of the Nutrition Component of the Rapid Eating and Activity Assessment for Patients (REAP): A New Tool for Primary Care Providers

Objectives1. To describe the development of a dietary assessment tool (Rapid Eating and Activity Assessment for Patients [REAP]) that quickly assesses a patient’s diet and physical activity and facilitates brief counselling by a primary care provider, and 2. To describe the evaluation of the REAP in terms of its reliability, validity, and ease of use by primary care providers.Design, Setting and ParticipantsThe evaluation of REAP included: 1) an implementation feasibility study conducted with 61 medical students and practicing physicians in practice settings at various medical schools; 2) a calibration study with 44 Brown University Medical School students; 3) cognitive assessment testing with 31 consumers in Rhode Island; and 4) a reliability and calibration study of the revised tool with 94 consumers in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.ResultsThe feasibility study revealed moderately high rankings on usefulness, ease, practicality, and helpfulness. The calibration studies demonstrated that REAP has excellent test-retest reliability (r = 0.86, P < .0001), is correlated with the Healthy Eating Index score (r = 0.49, P = .0007), and is significantly associated with intake of most nutrients studied.Conclusions and ImplicationsREAP has adequate reliability and validity to be used in primary care practices for nutrition assessment and counselling, and is also user-friendly for providers.