Horwitz R I, Yu E C
Int J Epidemiol. 1985 Sep;14(3):463-7. doi: 10.1093/ije/14.3.463.
We assessed the reliability of epidemiological data obtained by interview of 120 patients in a case-control study. The collected data, which were obtained by interview on two separate occasions, included such clinical and pharmaceutical features as history of lactation, hysterectomy, diabetes, type of menopause, and whether a woman had ever used exogenous oestrogens. Although we found generally high rates of agreement between interviews, errors in collecting and classifying data did occur, and were especially common for complicated clinical events, such as whether an oophorectomy accompanied the surgical removal of the uterus. Patients were also likely to disagree with previous responses when asked to recall a drug exposure occurring many years before. We identified seven sources of this variability, five in collecting the data, and two in coding. As a result of these findings, strategies are proposed for improving the quality of interview data obtained in epidemiological research.
在一项病例对照研究中，我们评估了通过对120名患者进行访谈获得的流行病学数据的可靠性。通过在两个不同场合进行访谈收集的数据，包括泌乳史、子宫切除术、糖尿病、绝经类型以及女性是否曾使用过外源性雌激素等临床和药学特征。尽管我们发现访谈之间的总体一致性率较高，但在收集和分类数据时确实出现了错误，对于复杂的临床事件，如子宫手术切除时是否同时进行了卵巢切除术，这种错误尤为常见。当要求患者回忆多年前发生的药物暴露情况时，他们也可能不同意之前的回答。我们确定了这种变异性的七个来源，其中五个与数据收集有关，两个与编码有关。基于这些发现，我们提出了提高流行病学研究中访谈数据质量的策略。
