McElrath K, Chitwood D D, Griffin D K, Comerford M
Comprehensive Drug Research Center, University of Miami, Fla. 33124.
Am J Public Health. 1994 Dec;84(12):1965-70. doi: 10.2105/ajph.84.12.1965.
Most studies of risk factors for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) rely heavily on retrospective self-reports. The degree to which these reports provide reliable information has received little research attention. The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which the reliability of retrospective self-report data is affected over time.
Data were examined from a longitudinal study of risk behaviors among injection drug users. Structured interviews were administered to 366 injection drug users who were asked to recall behaviors that they had reported 6, 12, or 18 months earlier.
Kappa coefficients showed moderate initial memory loss for injection and sexual risk behaviors. After 6 months, time had little effect on the ability of injection drug users to recall injection and sexual risk behaviors. For ordinal measures of risk, subjects who gave different reports over time were most likely to disagree by one response category.
These findings support the use of retrospective self-reports in assessing HIV risk behaviors among injection drug users. Retrospective inquiry is likely to remain an important method for collecting data over time.
大多数关于人类免疫缺陷病毒（HIV）危险因素的研究严重依赖回顾性自我报告。这些报告提供可靠信息的程度很少受到研究关注。本研究的目的是评估回顾性自我报告数据的可靠性随时间受到影响的程度。
对一项关于注射吸毒者风险行为的纵向研究的数据进行了检查。对366名注射吸毒者进行了结构化访谈，要求他们回忆6个月、12个月或18个月前报告过的行为。
卡帕系数显示，对于注射和性风险行为，最初存在中度记忆丧失。6个月后，时间对注射吸毒者回忆注射和性风险行为的能力影响不大。对于风险的有序测量，随着时间给出不同报告的受试者最有可能在一个反应类别上存在分歧。
这些发现支持在评估注射吸毒者的HIV风险行为时使用回顾性自我报告。回顾性询问可能仍然是长期收集数据的重要方法。
