Crawford Sybil L, Avis Nancy E, Gold Ellen, Johnston Janet, Kelsey Jennifer, Santoro Nanette, Sowers MaryFran, Sternfeld Barbara
Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 55 Lake Avenue North, Shaw Building Room 228, Worcester, MA 01655, USA.
Am J Epidemiol. 2008 Dec 15;168(12):1452-9. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwn279. Epub 2008 Oct 25.
Many epidemiologic studies include symptom checklists assessing recall of symptoms over a specified time period. Little research exists regarding the congruence of short-term symptom recall with daily self-reporting. The authors assessed the sensitivity and specificity of retrospective reporting of vasomotor symptoms using data from 567 participants in the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (1997-2002). Daily assessments were considered the "gold standard" for comparison with retrospective vasomotor symptom reporting. Logistic regression was used to identify predictors of sensitivity and specificity for retrospective reporting of any vasomotor symptoms versus none in the past 2 weeks. Sensitivity and specificity were relatively constant over a 3-year period. Sensitivity ranged from 78% to 84% and specificity from 85% to 89%. Sensitivity was lower among women with fewer symptomatic days in the daily assessments and higher among women reporting vasomotor symptoms in the daily assessment on the day of retrospective reporting. Specificity was negatively associated with general symptom awareness and past smoking and was positively associated with routine physical activity and Japanese ethnicity. Because many investigators rely on symptom recall, it is important to evaluate reporting accuracy, which was relatively high for vasomotor symptoms in this study. The approach presented here would be useful for examining other symptoms or behaviors.
许多流行病学研究都包含症状清单，用于评估在特定时间段内对症状的回忆情况。关于短期症状回忆与日常自我报告的一致性，相关研究较少。作者利用全国女性健康研究（1997 - 2002年）中567名参与者的数据，评估了血管舒缩症状回顾性报告的敏感性和特异性。日常评估被视为与血管舒缩症状回顾性报告进行比较的“金标准”。采用逻辑回归来确定过去2周内血管舒缩症状回顾性报告有症状与无症状的敏感性和特异性的预测因素。在3年的时间里，敏感性和特异性相对稳定。敏感性范围为78%至84%，特异性范围为85%至89%。在日常评估中有症状天数较少的女性中，敏感性较低；而在回顾性报告当天的日常评估中报告有血管舒缩症状的女性中，敏感性较高。特异性与一般症状意识和既往吸烟呈负相关，与日常体育活动和日本种族呈正相关。由于许多研究人员依赖症状回忆，因此评估报告准确性很重要，在本研究中血管舒缩症状的报告准确性相对较高。这里介绍的方法对于检查其他症状或行为将是有用的。
