Skip to main content
PMC home page
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health logoLink to Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
. 1998 Jan;52(1):65–69. doi: 10.1136/jech.52.1.65

Validity and accuracy of interview and diary data on children's medical utilisation in The Netherlands

M A Bruijnzeels, J C van der Wouden, M Foets, A Prins, W J van den Heuvel
PMCID: PMC1756609  PMID: 9604044

Abstract

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To assess the validity and accuracy of children's medical utilisation estimates from a health interview and diary and the possible consequences for morbidity estimates. The influence of recall bias and respondent characteristics on the reporting levels was also investigated. DESIGN: Validity study, with the medical record of the general practitioner (GP) as gold standard. In a health interview and three week diary estimates of medical utilisation of children were asked and compared with a GP's medical record. SETTING: General community and primary care centre in the Netherlands. PARTICIPANTS: Parents of 1,805 children and 161 GPs. MAIN RESULTS: The sensitivity of the interview (0.84) is higher than the diary (0.72), while specificity and kappa are higher in the diary (0.96; 0.64) than in the interview (0.91; 0.5-8). Recall bias, expressed as telescoping and heaping, is present in the interview data. Prevalence estimates of all morbidity are much higher in the interview, except for skin problems. Compared with a parental diary more consultations are reported exclusively by the GP for children from ethnic minorities (OR 1.6), jobless (OR 2.3), and less educated mothers (OR 2.6). CONCLUSIONS: Estimates of medical utilisation rates of children are critically influenced by the method of data collection used. Interviews are prone to introduce recall bias, while diaries should only be used in populations with an adequate level of literacy. It is recommended that medical records are used, as they produce most consistent estimates.

 

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (125.2 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Britt H., Harris M., Driver B., Bridges-Webb C., O'Toole B., Neary S. Reasons for encounter and diagnosed health problems: convergence between doctors and patients. Fam Pract. 1992 Jun;9(2):191–194. doi: 10.1093/fampra/9.2.191. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bruijnzeels M. A., van der Wouden J. C., Foets M. General practice consultation in childhood in The Netherlands: sociodemographic variation. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1995 Oct;49(5):532–533. doi: 10.1136/jech.49.5.532. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Coughlin S. S. Recall bias in epidemiologic studies. J Clin Epidemiol. 1990;43(1):87–91. doi: 10.1016/0895-4356(90)90060-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Harlow S. D., Linet M. S. Agreement between questionnaire data and medical records. The evidence for accuracy of recall. Am J Epidemiol. 1989 Feb;129(2):233–248. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a115129. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Heliövaara M., Aromaa A., Klaukka T., Knekt P., Joukamaa M., Impivaara O. Reliability and validity of interview data on chronic diseases. The Mini-Finland Health Survey. J Clin Epidemiol. 1993 Feb;46(2):181–191. doi: 10.1016/0895-4356(93)90056-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Landis J. R., Koch G. G. The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics. 1977 Mar;33(1):159–174. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Linet M. S., Harlow S. D., McLaughlin J. K., McCaffrey L. D. A comparison of interview data and medical records for previous medical conditions and surgery. J Clin Epidemiol. 1989;42(12):1207–1213. doi: 10.1016/0895-4356(89)90119-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. MECHANIC D., NEWTON M. SOME PROBLEMS IN THE ANALYSIS OF MORBIDITY DATA. J Chronic Dis. 1965 Jun;18:569–580. doi: 10.1016/0021-9681(65)90078-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Maclure M., Willett W. C. Misinterpretation and misuse of the kappa statistic. Am J Epidemiol. 1987 Aug;126(2):161–169. doi: 10.1093/aje/126.2.161. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. O'Toole B., Driver B., Britt H., Bridges-Webb C. Using general practitioners to measure community morbidity. Int J Epidemiol. 1991 Dec;20(4):1125–1132. doi: 10.1093/ije/20.4.1125. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Roghmann K. J., Haggerty R. J. The diary as a research instrument in the study of health and illness behavior: experiences with a random sample of young families. Med Care. 1972 Mar-Apr;10(2):143–163. doi: 10.1097/00005650-197203000-00004. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Rose G., Barker D. J. Epidemiology for the uninitiated. Repeatability and validity. Br Med J. 1978 Oct 14;2(6144):1070–1071. doi: 10.1136/bmj.2.6144.1070. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Starfield B., Katz H., Gabriel A., Livingston G., Benson P., Hankin J., Horn S., Steinwachs D. Morbidity in childhood--a longitudinal view. N Engl J Med. 1984 Mar 29;310(13):824–829. doi: 10.1056/NEJM198403293101305. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Sullivan L. M., Dukes K. A., Harris L., Dittus R. S., Greenfield S., Kaplan S. H. A comparison of various methods of collecting self-reported health outcomes data among low-income and minority patients. Med Care. 1995 Apr;33(4 Suppl):AS183–AS194. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Tennant A., Badley E. M., Sullivan M. Investigating the proxy effect and the saliency principle in household based postal questionnaires. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1991 Dec;45(4):312–316. doi: 10.1136/jech.45.4.312. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Verbrugge L. M. Health diaries. Med Care. 1980 Jan;18(1):73–95. doi: 10.1097/00005650-198001000-00006. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES