Mathiowetz N A, Groves R M
Am J Public Health. 1985 Jun;75(6):639-44. doi: 10.2105/ajph.75.6.639.
Survey researchers believe that self reports, in general, are more accurate than reports obtained by proxy. This paper focuses on the reassessment of previous self/proxy comparisons and presents findings from a telephone adaptation of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) designed to investigate response error associated with self and proxy reports. Unlike previous studies in which the type of report is confounded with characteristics of the population home at the time of the interview, the design of this study (random allocation to self or proxy report) allows comparison of reports from similar populations. The results show that when self response is limited to a randomly selected respondent, the self respondents report fewer health events for themselves versus for others in their household.
调查研究人员认为，一般来说，自我报告比通过代理人获取的报告更准确。本文着重重新评估以往的自我/代理人比较，并展示了一项对国家健康访谈调查（NHIS）进行电话改编的研究结果，该研究旨在调查与自我报告和代理人报告相关的应答误差。与以往报告类型与访谈时被访者家庭特征相混淆的研究不同，本研究的设计（随机分配自我报告或代理人报告）允许对来自相似人群的报告进行比较。结果显示，当自我报告仅限于随机挑选的应答者时，自我报告者为自己报告的健康事件比为其家庭中的其他人报告的要少。
