Rheumatic Disorders in a Health Survey: How Valid and Reliable are the Reports?

Abstract

The validity and reliability of interview reports on rheumatic disorders in a Swedish nationwide health survey were studied. Two samples, including altogether 157 individuals, who had reported rheumatic disorders, were medically examined 6 to 24 months after the original interview. The reproducibility of the original interview was studied by the means of two re-interviews. The proportional distribution of rheumatic disorders according to diagnostic group was similar to that in the original interview, in the two re-interviews and at the medical examination. In a subject-to-subject comparison the overall agreement between the medical examination and the lay re-interview was 84% (kappa 0.35) regarding presence of rheumatic disorders, and 57% (kappa 0.41) regarding matching of rheumatic diagnostic groups. In the original interview and the lay re-interview the same individual rheumatic disorder was reported by 38% of the subjects; 58% agreed regarding rheumatic diagnostic groups. The interview reports on rheumatic disorders in the health survey can therefore be considered to have acceptable validity and reliability only with regard to the proportional distribution of groups of rheumatic disorders, based on aggregated data.

Combined effects of job strain and social isolation on cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality in a random sample of the Swedish male working population.

“…Of the remaining 7 %, 1.4 % were coded as having a venous or pulmonary embolism or thrombosis, 2 010 were coded as ha ving an ill-defined heart disease (ICD code 429), and 3.6 % were coded as having other or unspecified forms of circulatory system disea se (lCD codes 454--458). Although a small proportion of these lCD categories do not have a plausible stress-related etiology, a decision was made to use the broader CYD indicator because of the findings from prospecti ve validation studies of th e Bureau's chronic disease classification system (34). These studies had indic ated that the survey-based dete ction system was very accurate in ascertaining broad categories of disease, such as " cardiovascular disease. "…”

The prevalence of rheumatic diseases in the elderly in developed countries and its evolution over time

“…References: (1) Lee et al (1985), (2) Vetter et al (1990), (3) Klaukka et al (1982), (4) Svanborg (1978), (5) Mikkelsen et al (1967), (6) Valkenburg (1988), (7) Bjelle et al (1980), (8) Bjelle & Allander (1981), (9) Laine (1962), (10) Moser & Ackermann-Liebrich (1986), (11) Jacobsson et al (1989), (12) Guralnik et al (1989), (13) Yelin (1992), (14) Verbrugge & Patrick (1995), (15) Taylor & Ford (1984), (16) Lawrence et al (1989), (17) Collins (1988), (18) The majority of the studies incorporated in our review are based on population surveys using data from interviews. In addition to the problems of definition, the reproducibility and the validity of such surveys may be problematic (Cobb et al 1955;Lawrence 1977;Magi et al 1984;Ford et al 1988;Beckett et al 2000). According to Lawrence (1977), Magi et al (1984) and Cobb et al (1955), the prevalences obtained through population surveys based on interviews are underestimated.…”

“…In addition to the problems of definition, the reproducibility and the validity of such surveys may be problematic (Cobb et al 1955;Lawrence 1977;Magi et al 1984;Ford et al 1988;Beckett et al 2000). According to Lawrence (1977), Magi et al (1984) and Cobb et al (1955), the prevalences obtained through population surveys based on interviews are underestimated. The estimates of the prevalence found in the last 10 years are closer to each other than the earlier prevalences, probably because of improvements in survey methodology.…”