Waldman J M, Bilder S M, Freeman N C, Friedman M
Department of Environmental and Community Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, New Jersey 08855.
J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol. 1993 Jan-Mar;3(1):39-48.
Self-completed recall diaries have become a common tool in epidemiology and exposure assessment to determine the location and/or activities of subjects during study periods. Unfortunately, little effort has been made to determine the accuracy of such an approach for providing information without significant bias. It is usually assumed that subjects are truthful and complete in their recall. An electronic datalogger has been designed to allow subjects to record location changes as they occur in real time. Subjects carried the datalogger for 3-5 days and completed recall diaries at the end of each day. The concordance between the two records was found to be relatively good for the most commonly visited locations, e.g., bed/bath, workplace, etc. Poorer agreement was found for locations of short or infrequent visits, e.g., cellar or vehicle. The merits and shortcomings of the datalogger approach are discussed. While having external validation for recall diary records is clearly necessary, reliance on subject input to the datalogger presents its own problems related to subject compliance. Electronic approaches which do not require active subject input are recommended to aid in the evaluation of recall diaries.
自我填写的回忆日记已成为流行病学和暴露评估中用于确定研究期间受试者位置和/或活动的常用工具。不幸的是，在确定这种方法提供无重大偏差信息的准确性方面几乎没有做什么工作。通常假定受试者在回忆时是真实且完整的。设计了一种电子数据记录器，以便受试者实时记录位置变化。受试者携带数据记录器3至5天，并在每天结束时填写回忆日记。对于最常去的地点，如床/浴室、工作场所等，发现两种记录之间的一致性相对较好。对于短时间或不常去的地点，如地窖或车辆，一致性较差。讨论了数据记录器方法的优缺点。虽然显然有必要对回忆日记记录进行外部验证，但依赖受试者向数据记录器输入信息也存在与受试者依从性相关的自身问题。建议采用不需要受试者主动输入的电子方法来协助评估回忆日记。
