Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, The Alfred, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
Occup Environ Med. 2010 Aug;67(8):507-12. doi: 10.1136/oem.2009.049676. Epub 2009 Dec 2.
As more children use mobile (cellular) telephones, public anxiety grows about the possible adverse health effects of radiofrequency (RF) exposure upon developing nervous systems. Most epidemiological studies investigating the health effects of mobile telephones have relied on self-reports from questionnaires. While there are some validation studies investigating the accuracy of self-reported mobile phone use in adults and adolescents, self-reported laterality of use has not been validated at any age. Although this study mainly sought to validate the accuracy of self-reported laterality of mobile telephone use in adolescents, investigation also covered number and duration of calls.
We monitored 455 calls in 30 students, mean age (SD) 14 (0.4) years. For 1 week, participants used hardware modified phones (HMPs) which logged dosimetric parameters such as laterality (side of head), date, number and duration of calls. These 'gold standard' measurements were compared with questionnaire self-reported laterality and estimated typical weekly phone use.
Agreement between HMPs and self-reported laterality was modest (kappa=0.3, 95% CI 0.0 to 0.6). Concordance between HMP measured and self-reported number of calls was fair (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC)=0.38, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.69), but poor for duration (ICC=0.01, 95% CI 0.00 to 0.37) with wide limits of agreement for both.
These results suggest that adolescent self-reported laterality was of limited validity. Adolescent self-reported phone use by number and duration of calls was generally inaccurate but comparable to recent adult studies. Epidemiological studies of mobile phone use based on self-reported information may underestimate true associations with health effects.
随着越来越多的儿童使用移动（蜂窝）电话，公众对发育期神经系统可能受到射频（RF）辐射的不良健康影响感到担忧。大多数研究移动电话健康影响的流行病学研究都依赖于问卷调查的自我报告。虽然有一些验证性研究调查了成人和青少年自我报告的移动电话使用的准确性，但自我报告的使用侧别尚未在任何年龄段得到验证。虽然这项研究主要旨在验证青少年自我报告的移动电话使用侧别的准确性，但也调查了通话次数和通话时间。
我们监测了 30 名 14 岁（0.4 岁）的学生中的 455 个电话。在 1 周内，参与者使用了记录剂量学参数（如侧别、日期、通话次数和通话时间）的硬件修改电话（HMP）。这些“金标准”测量结果与问卷自我报告的侧别和估计的典型每周电话使用情况进行了比较。
HMP 和自我报告的侧别之间的一致性是适度的（kappa=0.3，95%CI 0.0 至 0.6）。HMP 测量的通话次数与自我报告的一致性是适度的（组内相关系数（ICC）=0.38，95%CI 0.07 至 0.69），但通话时间的一致性较差（ICC=0.01，95%CI 0.00 至 0.37），两者的一致性范围都很宽。
这些结果表明，青少年自我报告的侧别有效性有限。青少年自我报告的电话使用次数和通话时间通常不准确，但与最近的成人研究相似。基于自我报告信息的移动电话使用流行病学研究可能低估了与健康影响的真实关联。
