Background
One of the strategic elements set by the WHO to tackle the burden of the high rates of overweight and obesity is nutrition education and public awareness (WHO, 2004). Provision of knowledge has been set as one of the means by which to improve dietary intake, and different nutrition knowledge assessment questionnaires have been developed and validated for use in different populations (Deniz and Alsaffar, 2013; Jones et al., 2015; Parmenter and Wardle, 1999). However, despite the high prevalence of overweight and obesity in Kuwait, there is currently no valid and reliable tool available to assess food knowledge in adults living in Kuwait.

Aim
The aim of this study is to assess the validity and reliability of the Kuwait Adult Food Knowledge Questionnaire (KAFKQ). The objective is to create and distribute a standardized food knowledge questionnaire in order to assess its validity and reliability in assessing nutrition knowledge in adults across Kuwait. 

Material and Methods
A total of 262 university adult students aged 21 years old and above were recruited in Kuwait. The participants were assigned to one of two arms of the study. Group “A” included students with nutrition and health background (including med, dentistry and pharmacy students), whereas group “B” included students with no nutrition or health education background (including business, engineering, and computer science students). This was done under the assumption that one group has higher nutrition knowledge compared to the other, while other demographic variables are almost consistent. Participants were asked to complete the KAFKQ at two points of time (T0 and T1), at two weeks interval. A two-tailed t-test was used to assess the difference in score between students with nutrition background or training and students with no previous nutrition knowledge, whereas Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to measure the test-retest reliability of the questionnaire taken by the same student at two points of time (T0 and T1). Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess internal consistency, and all tests were assessed at p < 0.05. 

Results 
The preliminary analysis of the results indicates a significant weak to moderate test-retest reliability of the overall KANKQ (r = 0.67, p < 0.001). There was a significant difference between scores of health (56.92%) and non-health (43.08%) university students (16.2 ± 3.0 vs 14.4 ± 2.8; p = 0.27), and this effect was even more apparent when broken down by nutrition background, where students who reported receiving intense nutrition training scored significantly higher compared to non-nutrition students (17.6 ± 3.4 vs 14.7 ± 2.7; p < 0.001). Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) of the KANKQ was 0.89 for trained and nutrition students and 0.80 for the overall population (N = 192). 

Discussion
Results of this study show that the KAFKQ is both a reliable and valid tool to be used in assessing nutrition and food knowledge in adults residing in Kuwait. Results also indicate that other health specialties such as medical, pharmacy and dentistry students in Kuwait do not receive adequate nutrition training and knowledge as part of their curriculum as their scores did not differ much from the non-health specialty population. This may raise the need to incorporate nutrition courses into these curriculums to increase awareness for nutrition knowledge and education within healthcare professionals. It is to our belief that the KAFKQ will be of great value in future studies designed to assess the correlation between food knowledge and dietary behaviors in Kuwait adults, as well as the impact of nutrition interventions aimed at increasing nutrition knowledge.

Assessing the validity and reliability of the Kuwait Adult Food Knowledge Questionnaire (KAFKQ)