Reliability of perceived health by sex and age

Citation
P. Martikainen et al., Reliability of perceived health by sex and age, SOCIAL SC M, 48(8), 1999, pp. 1117-1122
Citations number
23
Categorie Soggetti
Public Health & Health Care Science
Journal title
SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE
ISSN journal
02779536 → ACNP
Volume
48
Issue
8
Year of publication
1999
Pages
1117 - 1122
Database
ISI
SICI code
0277-9536(199904)48:8<1117:ROPHBS>2.0.ZU;2-7
Abstract
The aim of this study was to assess the test-retest reliability of a measur e of perceived general health by sex and age. The study analyzed data from the nationally representative Mini-Finland Health Survey of 8000 adults age d 30 and over. The subjects were invited to attend a personal health interv iew and a health examination in 1978-1980. Altogether 7217 persons particip ated. Perceived general health was measured at the personal health intervie w and in the self-administered questionnaire 1-6 weeks apart. The identical questions were: how would you assess your current health? The response alt ernatives were good, fairly good, intermediate, fairly poor, poor and canno t say. This study showed that among men and women unweighted agreement of t he 'good-intermediate-poor' categorization of perceived health was around 7 0% and unweighted kappa-values were around 0.5. Only in the oldest age-grou p (75 +) reliability declined below these levels. The fair or good reliabil ity of perceived health observed in this study gives additional confidence for using this general measure of overall health status in future research. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.