Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.
Scand J Public Health. 2022 Nov;50(7):930-934. doi: 10.1177/14034948211047776. Epub 2022 Apr 1.
With access to technologies and internet around the globe, opportunities have been provided to contact and recruit participants at a more rapid pace, without face-to-face contact. However, 'eCohorts' may yield substantial volunteer bias. Few studies have compared eCohorts to general populations or samples where traditional research methods have been applied. To our knowledge, no prior analyses have reported on Swedish-based LifeGene eCohort, in comparison with the Swedish general population. The aim of this study was to compare the LifeGene eCohort at baseline with the Swedish general population.
The LifeGene eCohort ( = 39,862) was compared with the general population in Sweden represented by weighted data from the Swedish Public Health agency and Statistics Sweden. LifeGene is a nationwide project with yearly data collection. Descriptive statistics were used to compare demographic characteristics, and self-reported data on diagnosis of depression.
The LifeGene eCohort overrepresented younger people, females, those with a higher socio-economic status, non-smokers and people with a diagnosis of depression. Surprisingly, the eCohort included a larger percentage of people born outside of Sweden compared to the general population, which is not in line with previous studies.
The results show that the participants in the LifeGene eCohort are different regarding demographic variables and some health indicators from the Swedish general population. Hence, if comparisons are made between the LifeGene eCohort and a general population it becomes important to be aware of the differences that might exist between the different cohort populations and how these might affect the estimates.
随着全球各地技术和互联网的普及，人们有机会以更快的速度联系和招募参与者，而无需面对面接触。然而，“电子队列”可能会产生大量的志愿者偏差。很少有研究将电子队列与应用传统研究方法的一般人群或样本进行比较。据我们所知，之前没有分析报告过瑞典的 LifeGene 电子队列与瑞典普通人群的比较。本研究旨在比较 LifeGene 电子队列的基线数据与瑞典普通人群。
通过加权数据，将 LifeGene 电子队列（n=39862）与瑞典公共卫生署和瑞典统计局代表的瑞典普通人群进行比较。LifeGene 是一个全国性的项目，每年进行数据收集。使用描述性统计方法比较人口统计学特征和自我报告的抑郁诊断数据。
LifeGene 电子队列中年轻人、女性、社会经济地位较高、不吸烟者和患有抑郁症的人比例较高。令人惊讶的是，电子队列中出生在瑞典以外的人数比例高于普通人群，这与之前的研究不一致。
研究结果表明，LifeGene 电子队列的参与者在人口统计学变量和一些健康指标方面与瑞典普通人群不同。因此，如果在 LifeGene 电子队列和普通人群之间进行比较，就需要意识到不同队列人群之间可能存在的差异，以及这些差异可能如何影响估计值。
