This research will develop and test videotape instruction as a method to teach new patients in the procedure for recording daily food consumption on NAS Cards. NAS Cards are mark sense computer cards used to record daily food consumption. NAS Cards significantly reduce the cost of computing nutritional composition of human diets and make the information more rapidly available because they eliminate coding of food identification numbers and the size of portions which have been eaten.At present, experienced dietitians teach new patients how to fill out NAS Cards. The investigator believes that NAS Cards will be more widely useful and commercially attractive if videotaped instruction can be used for this purpose. The proposed research will lead to improved methods for surveys of human nutrition and improved therapy for patients who require dietary instruction.The videotaped instruction to be developed will be tested against instruction by dietitians in a randomized clinical trial. Subjects will have demographic characteristics similar to current NAS Card users and will be tested for their ability to record items in standardized meals represented by food models.Videotape instruction and dietitian's instruction will be reinforced by home use of NAS Cards, plus immediate detection of ambiguous card marking. Interactive software for a desk top microcomputer will be developed to extend current capabilities for detecting ambiguous card marking and to reinforce instruction by both videotape or dietitian.National Cancer Institute
