Abstract
Objective
Validation studies of self-reported medication use in adolescents have been scarce.
The objective of this study was to estimate the sensitivity and specificity of self-reported
use of medication using a prescription database as reference standard.
Study Design and Setting
The study population consisted of a cohort of 2,613 adolescents aged 15–16 years from
the Norwegian youth health survey in 2004 and 2005. Self-reported data on medication
use were compared with data from the Norwegian Prescription Database which contains
information from all prescription dispensed at Norwegian pharmacies.
Results
Sensitivity for self-reported questions on medication use was highest for contraceptive
pills 99.2% (95% CI 97.7–100) compared to antiasthmatics 79.1% (66.9–91.2), painkillers
48.5% (36.7–60.4), and psychotropic drugs 75.0% (35.6–95.6). Specificity values of
self-reported information of psychotropic drugs 89.6% (87.8–91.5) and antiasthmatics
87.4% (85.4–89.5) were higher than for painkillers 80.0% (77.5–82.4) and contraceptive
pills 76.2% (72.3–80.1).
Conclusion
Validity of self-reported previous medication use among adolescents differed by the
therapeutic classes of medication. The highest sensitivity was observed for contraceptive
pills and lowest for prescribed painkillers.
Keywords
To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Journal of Clinical EpidemiologyAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Validity of pharmacoepidemiologic drug and diagnostics data.in: Strom B.L. Pharmacoepidemiology. 4th edition. John Wiley and Sons Ltd., West Sussex2006: 709-767
- Agreement between questionnaire data and medical records. The evidence for accuracy of recall.Am J Epidemiol. 1989; 129: 233-248
- Validity of parental-reported questionnaire data on Danish children/s use of asthma-drugs: a comparison with a population-based prescription database.Eur J Epidemiol. 2005; 20: 17-22
- (Available at) (Accessed January 2007)
- (Available at:) (Accessed January 2007)
- Use of psychotropic drugs in an urban adolescent population: the impact of health-related variables, lifestyle and sociodemographic factors.Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf. 2005; 14: 277-283
- Drug use in Norwegian Health surveys—response rate and agreement between specific and open-ended questions.Norsk Epidemilogi. 2003; 13: 147-154
- The Norwegian Prescription Database (NorPD)—a new register for pharmacoepidemiologic research covering a whole nation.Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf. 2005; 14: S49
- ATC classification index with DDDs 2005.WHO Collaborating Centre for Drug Statistics Methodology, Oslo2004
- Guidelines for ATC classification and DDD assignment 2005.9th Edition. WHO Collaborating Centre for Drug Statistics Methodology, Oslo2004
- Recall accuracy for prescription medications: self-report compared with database information.Am J Epidemiol. 1995; 142: 1103-1112
- Demographic, health behaviors and past drug use as predictors of recall accuracy for previous prescription medication use.J Clin Epidemiol. 1997; 50: 975-980
- Influence of question structure on the recall of self-reported drug use.J Clin Epidemiol. 2000; 53: 273-277
Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
November 19,
2007
Identification
Copyright
© 2008 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
