Description
Mette Rasmussen1, Bjørn E Holstein1, Ole Melkevik2, Mogens Trab Damsgaard11National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
2 Department of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
Background: It is often most feasible to collect data about height and weight by means of self-reports rather than by clinically measured data. However, self-reported data on height and weight are vitiated by information bias. It is therefore important to get more insight into reasons for this information bias, e.g. to separate unwillingness to report correctly and lack of capability for reporting correctly.
Objective: To estimate the prevalence of students with high and low response capability for self-reported weight and height in a self-administrated questionnaire survey and to estimate the association between response capability and socio-demographic factors.
Study design: A school-based cross-sectional questionnaire survey conducted in the city of Århus, Denmark, in a strategic sample of students aged 11, 13 and 15 years (n=2100). Measurement of response capability was based on students’ reports of measuring/weighing history and perceived recall ability.
Results: Approximately one third of the students had low response capability for weight. Low response capability for weight was associated with being a boy, of young age and living in single parent families. Approximately one third of the students had low response capability for height. This was associated with being of younger age and living in low SEP families. Every second student had low response capability for at least one of the components in the calculation of body mass index (BMI), height and/or weight. Low response capability for at least one of these components (and therefore for calculation of BMI) was associated with living in low SEP families.
Conclusion: The results illustrate a mean to improve the validity of analytical studies based on self-reported data on weight and height. By integrating items on response capability in survey instruments, students with low capabilities can be identified and characterised whereby analyses and conclusions can be adjusted and evaluated accordingly.
| Period | 2012 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Eropean Congress of Epidemiology |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Porto, PortugalShow on map |