Steenland K, Schnorr T
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, OH 45226.
J Occup Med. 1988 Apr;30(4):348-53.
We report on the availability and accuracy of next-of-kin data on 372 decedents gathered in the conduct of a retrospective cancer incidence study. Two mailed questionnaires were followed by phone calls for nonrespondents. The overall response rate for the next of kin of decedents was 59%, markedly less than the 79% response rate for living cohort members. Validity of data provided by next of kin regarding cancer incidence and smoking habits of the decedents was assessed via a comparison with medical records, which were considered accurate for the purposes of this comparison. For the 117 men for whom we had both types of records, next of kin were generally able to report accurately both whether the decedent ever had cancer (91% agreement) and the cancer type (84% agreement). Next-of-kin data generally agreed with medical record data for number of years smoked or for number of years since quitting, whereas next of kin underreported the amount smoked by decedents. The difficulty in contacting next of kin and their frequent inability to provide detailed and accurate information on smoking may make it difficult to adjust for confounding by smoking in nested case-control studies.
我们报告了在一项回顾性癌症发病率研究中收集的372名死者近亲数据的可获取性和准确性。我们先邮寄了两份问卷，然后对未回复者进行电话随访。死者近亲的总体回复率为59%，明显低于在世队列成员79%的回复率。通过与病历进行比较，评估了死者近亲提供的关于死者癌症发病率和吸烟习惯的数据的有效性，在此比较中，病历被视为准确数据。对于我们同时拥有这两类记录的117名男性，近亲通常能够准确报告死者是否曾患癌症（一致性为91%）以及癌症类型（一致性为84%）。近亲数据在吸烟年数或戒烟年数方面通常与病历数据一致，然而近亲少报了死者的吸烟量。在巢式病例对照研究中，联系近亲存在困难，且他们经常无法提供关于吸烟的详细准确信息，这可能使得难以对吸烟造成的混杂因素进行调整。
