Galobardes B, Sunyer J, Antó J M, Castellsagué J, Soriano J B, Tobias A
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica, Barcelona, Spain.
J Clin Epidemiol. 1998 Oct;51(10):875-81. doi: 10.1016/s0895-4356(98)00063-8.
The European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS), a multinational survey, assesses and compares the prevalence of asthma among subjects, aged 20 to 44, in several European areas. In Spain, some participating centers have used mail and telephone as methods of questionnaire administration. The objective of the present study was to determine whether the validity and reliability of the questionnaire differed by method of administration. Reliability of the questionnaire was measured with the kappa index and the odds ratio of agreement, and validity with the sensitivity and specificity. This study found differences in the reliability of the questionnaires although these differences were more related to the questions themselves than to the method of administration. Among men, but not women, mailed questionnaires were more sensitive and telephone questionnaires more specific. We hypothesize that these differences in validity were due to the self-selection to more severe symptomatic subjects replying earlier and therefore to the mailed questionnaire. Combining different methods of administration was useful as it increased participation and was an adequate procedure to obtain information of good quality.
欧洲共同体呼吸健康调查（ECRHS）是一项跨国调查，旨在评估和比较欧洲多个地区20至44岁人群中哮喘的患病率。在西班牙，一些参与中心采用邮寄和电话方式发放问卷。本研究的目的是确定问卷的有效性和可靠性是否因发放方式而异。问卷的可靠性用kappa指数和一致性比值比来衡量，有效性用敏感性和特异性来衡量。本研究发现问卷的可靠性存在差异，尽管这些差异更多地与问题本身有关，而非发放方式。在男性中，邮寄问卷更敏感，电话问卷更具特异性，但女性并非如此。我们推测，有效性的这些差异是由于症状较重的受试者会自行选择更早回复，因此是针对邮寄问卷而言。结合不同的发放方式很有用，因为它提高了参与度，并且是获取高质量信息的适当程序。
