Table 3. Comparison of dietary quality indices across the DASH tertiles .

Variables	DASH diet			P value fortrend a	P value for comparison T1&T2 b	P value for comparison T1&T3 b	P value for comparisonT2&T3 b
	T1 (n = 108)	T2 (n= 101)	T3 (n =95)
AHEI-2010	24.61 ± 8.01	23.04 ± 7.87	21.23 ± 8.26	0.010	0.541	0.002	0.615
DDS	5.10 ± 1.15	5.52 ± 1.25	5.47 ± 1.01	0.010	0.010	0.010	0.453
Diversity score of dairy	1.12 ± 0.61	1.36 ± 0.60	1.19 ± 0.61	0.010	0.006	0.075	0.003
Diversity score of fruits	1.54 ± 0.53	1.65 ± 0.52	1.73 ± 0.48	0.010	0.123	0.005	0.914
Diversity score of vegetables	0.69 ± 0.28	0.78 ± 0.31	0.82 ± 0.28	0.002	0.033	0.001	0.342
Diversity score of grain	1.06 ± 0.24	1.14 ± 0.26	1.10 ± 0.27	0.122	0.312	0.374	0.221
Diversity score of meat	0.67 ± 0.40	0.57 ± 0.42	0.61 ± 0.46	0.281	0.212	0.341	0.415
DDS/DED	4.4 ± 1.9	5.7 ± 2.5	6.7 ± 2.9	<0.001	0.050	<0.001	0.070
DED	1.26 ± 0.30	1.15 ± 0.27	0.99 ± 0.35	<0.001	0.020	<0.001	<0.001
MAR	1.18 ± 0.41	1.19 ± 0.46	1.17 ± 0.48	0.933	0.922	0.931	0.900

DASH, dietary approach to stop hypertension; AHEI, Alternative Healthy Eating Index; DDS, dietary diversity score; DED, dietary energy density; MAR, mean adequacy ratio.

^a One-way ANOVA for DED and ANCOVA test for other variables (adjusted for energy intake) and <0.05 is significant

^b Tukey test; ^c Mean± SD.