Abstract
BackgroundValid interview data is critical to the final results of the study. The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability of epidemiological data obtained in non-smoking female lung cancer case-control study in China.MethodsFifty-six pairs of cases and controls, 10% percent of all the collected subjects were re-interviewed by three interviewers who underwent identical standardized training. A limited number of questions included in the original survey were asked again, the responses from the re-interview were compared with the original interview. Kappa was calculated by negative rates of agreement, positive rates of agreement and total rates of agreement to the accordance degree between the two interviews.ResultsThe Kappa values were all more than 0.5 in all the studied indexes. The Kappa values descended from 0.92 in family history of cancer to 0.56 in oral contraception use. Errors in collecting and classifying data did occur, and were especially common for complicated clinical events, such as a drug exposure occurring many years before.ConclusionWe identified four sources of this variability, three in collecting the data, and one in coding. As a result of these findings, strategies are proposed for improving the quality of interview data obtained in epidemiological research. Before finding a good solution, the strategy of data collecting and coding should be simple and easy to inspect.
Highlights
Valid interview data is critical to the final results of the study
Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide and in China [1,2,3,4,5,6]. All those studies showed that cigarette smoking [7,8,9] was the primary risk factor for female lung cancer, which accounted for only 25% of all female cell types and 10% of female adenocarcinoma in Shanghai [10], 37% of all female cell types and 14% of female adenocarcinoma in Shenyang [11]
These statistics pointed to the necessity of investigating and understanding the etiology of lung cancer in general, and urgency for identifying factors affecting the risk for female lung cancer
Summary
The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability of epidemiological data obtained in non-smoking female lung cancer case-control study in China. Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death worldwide and in China [1,2,3,4,5,6] All those studies showed that cigarette smoking [7,8,9] was the primary risk factor for female lung cancer, which accounted for only 25% of all female cell types and 10% of female adenocarcinoma in Shanghai [10], 37% of all female cell types and 14% of female adenocarcinoma in Shenyang [11]. Some interviewers of varying training and ability are always aware of hypothesized risk factors under investigation
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