Background:

twenty-four-hour urinary sodium excretion is the reference method to assess sodium intake; however, tools that can be more easily applied in the clinical and population setting are needed.

Objectives:

to develop and evaluate a self-administered high-sodium food frequency questionnaire (abbreviated to CFCA-S in Spanish) as a screening tool for high sodium intake in an adult Mexico City population.

Methods:

a CFCA-S including 28 sodium-rich food categories and a scoring system were developed. The 75 percentile for the total score was tested as cut-off point to classify high sodium consumers at two different levels (≥ 2,000 and ≥ 3,000 mg/day) against 24-h urinary sodium excretion as reference method.

Results:

ninety-five participants were included (median age: 39 [25th-75th percentiles: 26-46] years; men: 39 [41.1%]). A total score of 51.2 in the CFCA-S showed a sensitivity of 31.6% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 19.1-47.5), specificity of 78.9 (95% CI: 66.7-87.5), positive predictive value of 50% (95% CI: 31.4-68.6) and negative predictive value of 63.4% (95% CI: 51.8-73.6) to classify high-sodium consumers at a level of intake ≥ 3,000 mg/day. A total score ≥ 51.2 was significantly associated with a sodium intake ≥ 3,000 mg/day, observing an odds ratio of 3.12 (CI 95%: 1.03-9.44, p = 0.04), after adjusting by sex, age, and body mass index.

Conclusions:

the sodium CFCA-S developed in this study is a practical, feasible and useful tool to identify individuals at greater risk of having a high sodium intake.

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