Overview
Contrary to North America and Europe, the prevalence of hypertension is rising in West Africa and, currently, there are no simple dietary assessment tools for clinicians to offer personalized dietary support to their patients. This study aims to:
- Evaluate the feasibility and validate the a short dietary screening tool for hypertension for use in Nigerian clinics; and
- Test the accuracy and estimate the potential value of the validated short dietary assessment tool in Nigeria clinics.
Description
Contrary to North America and Europe, the prevalence of hypertension is rising in West Africa. With a transition from whole foods to processed foods in Nigeria, diet is considered a key driver of hypertension. To combat this, the national nutritional guidelines in Nigeria were implemented but their translation into actionable tools for clinicians remains a challenge. Currently, there are no simple dietary assessment tools that are concise and suitable to be incorporated into clinical care without requiring extensive data analysis while still providing personalized dietary support to their patients. This study aims to deliver a clinically tested and validated short dietary assessment tool for clinicians, patients, and researchers across Nigeria to provide personalised dietary advice for patients with hypertension.
The study will be conducted in two phases: Phase 1 (n=75), will investigate the feasibility of the short FFQ and its agreement with 24-hour dietary recalls (3x) in a clinical setting in Nigeria. During the analysis of Phase 1 data, a scoring system will be developed based on the associations between individual food items in the FFQ and measures of hypertension. Phase 2 (n=50) will assess the acceptability of the FFQ and validate the association between the FFQ score and hypertension.
We anticipate that the development of a clinically tested and validated short food frequency questionnaire that will be ready for implementation analysis for use by clinicians, patients, and researchers across Nigerian that will support the prevention and management of hypertension.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- Men and women of generally good health or with hypertension
Exclusion Criteria:
- history of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (heart diseases), stroke, chronic kidney diseases, or pregnant or breastfeeding women, children below 18 years and adults above 70 years are also excluded from this study. Additionally, individuals who have made significant changes to their diet in the past six months or are currently following specific dietary restrictions will also be excluded from this study