Abstract
BackgroundWhen large scale trials are investigating the effects of interventions on appetite, it is paramount to efficiently monitor large amounts of human data. The original hand-held Electronic Appetite Ratings System (EARS) was designed to facilitate the administering and data management of visual analogue scales (VAS) of subjective appetite sensations. The purpose of this study was to validate a novel hand-held method (EARS II (HP® iPAQ)) against the standard Pen and Paper (P&P) method and the previously validated EARS.MethodsTwelve participants (5 male, 7 female, aged 18-40) were involved in a fully repeated measures design. Participants were randomly assigned in a crossover design, to either high fat (>48% fat) or low fat (<28% fat) meal days, one week apart and completed ratings using the three data capture methods ordered according to Latin Square. The first set of appetite sensations was completed in a fasted state, immediately before a fixed breakfast. Thereafter, appetite sensations were completed every thirty minutes for 4h. An ad libitum lunch was provided immediately before completing a final set of appetite sensations.ResultsRepeated measures ANOVAs were conducted for ratings of hunger, fullness and desire to eat. There were no significant differences between P&P compared with either EARS or EARS II (p > 0.05). Correlation coefficients between P&P and EARS II, controlling for age and gender, were performed on Area Under the Curve ratings. R2 for Hunger (0.89), Fullness (0.96) and Desire to Eat (0.95) were statistically significant (p < 0.05).ConclusionsEARS II was sensitive to the impact of a meal and recovery of appetite during the postprandial period and is therefore an effective device for monitoring appetite sensations. This study provides evidence and support for further validation of the novel EARS II method for monitoring appetite sensations during large scale studies. The added versatility means that future uses of the system provides the potential to monitor a range of other behavioural and physiological measures often important in clinical and free living trials.This study was registered as a clinical trial by Current Controlled Trials (Registration Number - ISRCTN47291569).
Highlights
When large scale trials are investigating the effects of interventions on appetite, it is paramount to efficiently monitor large amounts of human data
The results demonstrated that the mean area under the curve (AUC) ratings were similar between the two techniques, there were significant differences between the techniques when some of the ratings at individual time points were compared
Method of visual analogue scales (VAS) There was no significant difference between the three methods for Hunger, Fullness or Desire to Eat for either the high or low fat conditions (p = < 0.05) (See figure 1)
Summary
When large scale trials are investigating the effects of interventions on appetite, it is paramount to efficiently monitor large amounts of human data. The original hand-held Electronic Appetite Ratings System (EARS) was designed to facilitate the administering and data management of visual analogue scales (VAS) of subjective appetite sensations. Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) have been used in clinical and research settings to continuously monitor a range of subjective sensations for example, pain, depression and appetite [1]. The results demonstrated that the mean area under the curve (AUC) ratings were similar between the two techniques, there were significant differences between the techniques when some of the ratings at individual time points were compared (i.e., immediately before and after meals) Both techniques detected a significant difference between the high and low energy lunches [8]. Due to the unsystematic pattern of variation in the data and the high standard deviations giving wide limits of agreement, these factors suggest that there is limited amount of agreement between the methods and they should not be used interchangeably [9]
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