Validity and reliability of the sports nutrition knowledge questionnaire in turkish society and assessment of its relationship with diet quality

The aim of this research is to correctly determine elite athletes' knowledge about sports nutrition by doing validity and reliability of Sports Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire (SNNQ); and also to assess the relationship between sports nutrition knowledge level and diet quality of athletes. A total of 125 elite athletes and 85 nutrition and dietetics department senior students aged 19-30 years participated in the research. A questionnaire was applied face-to-face to assign general characteristics, nutritional habits and sports nutrition knowledge of the individuals. Twenty four hour dietary recall and food frequency questionnaire records were taken to determine the nutritional status. The diet quality of the athletes was evaluated by Healthy Eating İndex-2015 (HEI-2015). SNNQ were detected as reliable according to the high internal consistency (Kuder Richardson-20=0.927) and test-retest with interclass correlation coefficient (r=0.974). The difference between SNNQ total scores of athletes and nutrition and dietetics department students was statistically significant; so that the construct validity of the questionnaire was obtained (p<0.001). The total score of the SNNQ of the athletes was determined as 46.9 ± 10.28%. There was no statistically significant difference between SBBA scores according to sex (p> 0.05). The SNNQ total score of the team sports-aerobic sports group was significantly higher than the SNNQ total score of anaerobic sports group (p<0.05). The SNNQ total score of athletes who took sports nutrition course was found to be significantly higher than those who did not take courses (p<0.05). A statistically significant, positive weak correlation was found between the total score of the SNNQ and the total score of the HEI-2015 (r=0,264, p=0,003), whole grains score (r=0.248, p=0.005), dairy score (r= 0.238, p=0.007) and added sugars score (r=0.200, p=0.025). SNNQ was found valid and reliable to assess the nutrition knowledge of Turkish athletes. Further research is needed to clarify the effect of nutrition knowledge on nutrition practices in athletes.