Abstract
Background: Exposures and outcomes frequently are measured by self-reports in epidemiologic studies. However, compared with objective data based on physiologic or laboratory tests, self-reports may suffer from lower accuracy and reliability. In addition, few reports examine reliability in population subgroups, such as black adults. Methods: The authors examined the retest reliability of common self-reports concerning self-care, function, and chronic conditions in a random subsample of 92 middle-aged black subjects from a larger cohort of 998 subjects in St. Louis, Missouri. Subjects completed in-home interviews between September 2000 and July 2001. Measures: Function and self-care measures included 7 basic activities of daily living, 8 instrumental activities of daily living, and 9 items based on the Nagi physical performance scale. Chronic conditions included a list of 11 common diseases and conditions and the 7 items of the Rose Angina protocol. Item level agreement was measured by kappa and scale level agreement was measured by intraclass correlation coefficients. Results: Function and self-care items demonstrated highly variable agreement with 7 items failing to reach even moderate (kappa = 0.40) levels of agreement. Scale reliability was better, and intraclass correlation coefficients ranged from 0.75 to 0.95. Self-reported chronic conditions all achieved at least moderate agreement, except for angina based on the Rose protocol. Conclusions: This study provides evidence that summary measures of function and a number of chronic conditions and diseases are reliable based on self-reports from urban black adults.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 93-97 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Medical care |
Volume | 43 |
Issue number | 1 |
State | Published - Jan 2005 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Activities of daily living
- Chronic disease
- Data collection
- Disability evaluation
- Questionnaires
- Reproducibility of results
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health