REPRODUCIBILITY OF INFORMATION IN A STUDY OF THE RISK-FACTORS FOR INSULIN-DEPENDENT DIABETES-MELLITUS

The reliability of information about mothers' and fathers' education, weight and height at birth, history of diarrhoea, duration of exclusiv e breastfeeding and age of introduction of cows' milk products, select ed from a structured questionnaire used in home interviewers was exami ned in a sample of 38 cases and 38 controls from a study related to th e risk factors of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The repetition of the questions was done by telephone. The agreement between the answ ers of both interviewers was verified using the kappa statistic (categ orical variables) and the intra-class correlation coefficient (quantit ative variables). The results enable one to conclude that the informat ion is reproducible.