Evidence for reliability and validity of parent reports of twin children’s birth information

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to assess the reliability and validity of birth information provided by parents and to determine if the age of the child affects the reliability of information collected. This study used data from 105 families of typically developing twin and triplet children whose parents provided this information as part of a larger survey. Families originally participated in a longitudinal study at least once when children were between the ages of 1 and 5 years and were re-tested at least once subsequently between the ages of 2 and 17 years. A subset of 57 families (mean age = 2.58 years, sd = 2.41) also released hospital birth information to compare to parent report to assess validity. Repeated measures MANCOVAs were used to test for significant differences between parent reports at each time point. No differences were found between parent reports provided at different points in time regardless of the age of the child when reports were collected or length of time between collections. Thus, the method of using parent reports to collect data on neonatal birth complications appears to show acceptable test-retest reliability. Correlation analyses comparing parent reports to hospital records showed that parent reports were highly valid, with all correlations highly significant except minor birth complication scores for second born children. These findings have far-reaching implications for data collection in research and clinical work because they suggest that obtaining parent reports of birth complications, even many years after birth, is an acceptable method for assessing this information.