THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF A STRUCTURED INTERVIEW FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF INFECTIOUS ILLNESS SYMPTOMS

Respiratory infections are the leading cause of morbidity in community populations. We developed a structured interview based on the Health Review (Rose et al., Psychosom. Med. 40: 142-165, 1978) to provide a s imple method for periodic assessment of infectious illness, particular ly upper respiratory infections, Congruence between interview data and physician diagnoses demonstrated excellent agreement regarding the pr esence or absence of an infection. Subjects who showed a clinically si gnificant increase in antibody titers to an influenza virus vaccine re ported fewer than half as many respiratory infections in the subsequen t year as subjects who did not show a significant response. interrater and test-retest reliabilities were satisfactory. These data support t he reliability and validity of this method of assessing infectious ill nesses.