Accuracy of self-reported cigarette smoking among pregnant women in the 1990s

In large, prospective studies of pregnancy conducted in the 1960s, women re ported very accurately whether or not they smoked. However, in the 1990s, p regnant women who smoke are often pressured to reduce or quit smoking, and the incentive to misreport may be greater than in the past To assess the ac curacy of reported smoking, the authors compared self-reported smoking with cotinine in the serum and/or urine of 105 women who participated in the Ca lcium for Pre-eclampsia Prevention pilot study in 1992. Cotinine confirmed the report of 84.6% of women who reported smoking and 94.5% of women who de nied smoking. Those fractions are virtually identical to those obtained in a pregnancy cohort from the 1960s. nh authors conclude that in the setting of two obstetrical research studies not specifically focused on smoking, th e accuracy of self-reported cigarette smoking did not change substantially from the 1960s to the 1990s.