Open AccessReliability and validity of women's recall of mammographic screening
Author(s) -
Barratt Alexandra,
Cockburn Jill,
Smith David,
Redman Sally
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.946
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1753-6405
pISSN - 1326-0200
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-842x.2000.tb00728.x
Subject(s) - attendance , medicine , mammography , recall , reliability (semiconductor) , validity , kappa , breast cancer screening , quarter (canadian coin) , clinical psychology , family medicine , breast cancer , psychology , psychometrics , cancer , power (physics) , linguistics , physics , philosophy , archaeology , quantum mechanics , history , economics , cognitive psychology , economic growth
Objective: To assess the reliability and validity of self‐reported attendance for mammographic screening.Methods: To assess reliability of recall of attendance for a screening mammogram, 100 women selected at random were interviewed twice (approximately one week apart). To assess validity, 127 women who reported having a mammogram within the national breast screening program (BreastScreen Australia) consented to having their reports verified by the national program.Results: Test‐retest reliability for the question “Have you ever had a mammogram?” was perfect (agreement 100%, kappa 1). Validity was also high. About one‐quarter of women (24.4%) recalled the exact date of their last mammogram and a further third (39.4%) correctly reported the month in which the mammogram was done. Almost all (91.3%) women reported the mammogram date accurately to within 12 months of the recorded date.Conclusions: These data suggest that Australian women provide reliable and valid information in relation to mammographic screening attendance.Implications: Self‐reported data about attendance for mammographic screening are likely to provide reliable and valid estimates for research and health services evaluation purposes.