Development and validation of a diagnostic tool for Food and Nutrition Education actions in the school environment/Desenvolvimento e validacao de instrumento para diagnostico das acoes de Educacao Alimentar e Nutricional no ambito escolar

Introduction: Food and Nutrition Education is acknowledged as a practice to form adequate eating habits and, especially in the school environment, has gained strength through several guidelines and regulations. Objective: Develop and validate a diagnosis tool for Food and Nutrition Education [EAN - Educacao Alimentar e Nutricional] actions developed in schools. Method: Methodological study with questionnaire design in 3 steps: a survey of the questionnaire's items and sections through a literature review of scientific articles, institutional documents, and current legislation; drafting the questionnaire items based on the definition of themes and domains, respecting techniques and strategies to prepare items for measurement scales; and content validation by checking the representativeness of the items to the content to be evaluated. Results: A self-administered questionnaire was obtained for those responsible for schools at all levels of elementary education, with 25 items divided into 4 sections: 1) School identification - 7 items, 2) EAN in schools - 10 items, 3) Use of the school garden - 5 items; and 4) Interaction of professionals and family members with EAN actions - 3 items. Conclusions: The proposed questionnaire can be used to initially review the EAN situation in schools, drive important developments, and should qualify the planning of future actions. Although it was developed with a focus on public schools, its use can also be extrapolated to private schools, which allows comparisons between different scenarios. Keywords: Food and Nutrition Education. Questionnaire. School Healthcare Promotion. School food Introducao: A Educacao Alimentar e Nutricional e reconhecida como uma pratica de formacao de habitos alimentares adequados e, especialmente no ambiente escolar, ganhou forca por meio de uma serie de orientacoes e normativas. Objetivo: Desenvolver e validar instrumento para o diagnostico das acoes de Educacao Alimentar e Nutricional (EAN) desenvolvidas em escolas. Metodo: Estudo metodologico com elaboracao de questionario em 3 etapas: levantamento dos itens e secoes do questionario por meio de revisao bibliografica de artigos cientificos, documentos institucionais e legislacao vigente; redacao dos itens do questionario a partir da definicao dos temas e dominios, respeitando tecnicas e estrategias de elaboracao de itens para escalas de medida; e validacao do conteudo pela verificacao da representatividade dos itens ao conteudo a ser avaliado. Re