Ask and ye shall receive: Behavioural specificity in the accuracy of subjective memory complaints

A cross-sectional sample of adults completed an extensive set of cognitive tasks and a set of questionnaires measuring depressive affect, memory compl aint, and other variables. During an interview about their prescribed medic ations, the participants also reported whether they were having problems re membering to take the medication as prescribed (an everyday prospective mem ory problem). Their medication adherence at home was then monitored for one month using pill bottles which microelectronic caps. Cognitive tasks corre lated with memory complaints, as measured by the Memory Functioning Questio nnaire, but not with problems in remembering to take medications. The highe st correlations were with a free recall task. Conversely, reported problems with medication adherence during the interview had good predictive validit y for subsequent adherence problems, but not for cognitive tasks, including a measure of prospective memory. Depressive affect was related to both the questionnaire and the interview complaints about medication adherence, but a structural equation model showed that the relationships of cognition and medication adherence to the different memory complaints were independent o f depressive affect. The results are interpreted in terms of a behavioural specificity hypothesis, which states that adults' self-reports of memory pr oblems are valid when they focus directly on specific memory-related behavi ours in everyday contexts. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.