RELIABILITY OF REPORTS OF SEXUAL-BEHAVIOR - A STUDY OF MARRIED-COUPLES IN RURAL WEST-AFRICA

A heterosexual partners survey in rural Senegal, Africa, was carried o ut in 1992 to evaluate the reliability of self-reported answers about sexual practices, The authors followed 62 married couples weekly durin g a 5-week period to assess the level of agreement 1) between answers made by members of the same couple but collected separately, 2) betwee n retrospective reporting of sexual activity during the last 4 weeks v ersus weekly reporting of sexual activity during 4 weeks, and 3) betwe en answers to a set of identical retrospective questions asked 5 weeks apart, Reports over recent and short periods of time such as 7 days a re reliable: The dates of sexual acts with spouse reported during the weekly interviews were concordant between members of a couple at 0-day or 1-day intervals in 72% of cases, The concordance of weeks reported with or without intercourse was also high. Reports over longer period s of time are less reliable: The comparison of retrospective reports v ersus weekly reports regarding mean number of sexual acts during the l ast 4 weeks shows a clear overreporting that was higher among men (4.5 vs, 2.7 sexual acts) than among women (3.7 vs, 2.7).