Assessment of nutrition literacy by two diagnostic methods in a Brazilian sample Avaliação do letramento em nutrição por dois métodos diagnósticos em brasileiros

The nutrition literacy is defined as the degree to which individuals can obtain, process and understand information and basic nutrition needed to make correct decisions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the nutrition literacy through the use of both instruments. We evaluated 38 employees of primary health care. The instruments used in the research were: Newest Vital Sign - NVS and Nutritional Literacy Scale - NLS. This is a sample of adult with undergraduate, 81.6% women, with associated post graduate, 52.6%. The prevalence of inadequacy was 68.4% and 5.3% for NVS and NLS, respectively. There was no agreement between the methods of assessment of literacy in nutrition (k = 0.50, p = 0.324). It follows that the two instruments are not interchangeable for use with the purpose of diagnosing nutritional literacy.