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An Exploratory Study of College Students' Attitudes Toward Dietary Protein: Development of a Dietary Protein Assessment Survey Instrument (P16-047-19).

Objectives
The purpose of this exploratory study was to develop a survey to estimate college students' attitudes towards dietary protein. This analysis explored the dimensionality of the attitude constructs in the Dietary Protein Assessment Survey Instrument.


Methods
The survey consisted of 64 questions, including 8 demographic questions, 24 knowledge questions, 14 attitude questions, and 18 behavior questions. The attitude questions included a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree" with a neutral midpoint. The dimensionality of the attitude constructs was explored by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using principal axis factoring and a promax rotation. Internal consistency reliability was examined using Cronbach's alpha.


Results
Two hundred twenty-five subjects (91.1% female) provided responses; mean age was 27.8 + 11.7y. After removing items that did not factor, the EFA retained three factors which explained 70.2% of the variance. Factor 1 consisted of 6 items, factor 2 and 3 consisted of 2 items each. Factor 1 included 6 items related to animal versus plant sources and their relationship with human and environmental health; factor 2 included 2 items pertaining to the healthfulness of organic protein sources; and factor 2 included 2 items describing the adequacy of the RDA for protein with respect to weight loss and adherence to a vegetarian diet. Factor 1 shared a moderate, positive relationship with factor 2 (r = 0.48) and a weak, inverse relationship with factor 3 (r = -0.33). Factor 2 shared a weak, inverse relationship with factor 3 (r = -0.30). The Kaiser-Meyer-Oklin test (0.817) and Bartlett's test of sphericity (P < 0.001) indicated that the data were appropriate for EFA. There was no evidence of multicollinearity (determinant = 0.01).


Conclusions
Attitudes towards protein appear to be multi-dimensional and correlated. Further testing is needed to confirm the hypothesized 3-factor model and to estimate test-retest reliability of this survey.


Funding Sources
Dymatize.