TY - JOUR
T1 - Use of proxies to measure health and functional status in epidemiologic studies of community-dwelling women aged 65 years and older
AU - Magaziner, Jay
AU - Bassett, Susan Spear
AU - Hebel, J. Richard
AU - Gruber-Baldini, Ann
N1 - Funding Information:
Support for this research was provided by National Institute on Aging grants RO1 AGO4366 and RO1 AGO99O2. The authors also acknowledge the assistance of Suzanne Miller.
PY - 1996/2/1
Y1 - 1996/2/1
N2 - Proxy and subject responses to survey questions about chronic conditions, health symptoms, and physical and instrumental functioning were compared to determine the extent of disagreement, the direction of nonrandom discrepancies (i.e., bias), and how disagreement and bias vary by proxy and subject characteristics. Subjects included 538 community-dwelling women aged 65 years and older who participated in the third home interview of a health survey in Baltimore, Maryland, 1986, and a self-designated proxy for each. The authors observed kappa values of >0.6 (i.e., substantial to almost perfect agreement) for five of nine chronic conditions, no health symptoms, six of seven physical tasks of daily living, and seven of seven instrumental tasks of daily living. With few exceptions, proxies were more likely than subjects to report the presence of a condition, symptom, or functional problem. Variations in agreement and bias were noted by subject and proxy characteristics, with different patterns observed for different measurement areas. When using proxy reports in place of self-reports, it is important to evaluate the impact that using proxies has on study results.
AB - Proxy and subject responses to survey questions about chronic conditions, health symptoms, and physical and instrumental functioning were compared to determine the extent of disagreement, the direction of nonrandom discrepancies (i.e., bias), and how disagreement and bias vary by proxy and subject characteristics. Subjects included 538 community-dwelling women aged 65 years and older who participated in the third home interview of a health survey in Baltimore, Maryland, 1986, and a self-designated proxy for each. The authors observed kappa values of >0.6 (i.e., substantial to almost perfect agreement) for five of nine chronic conditions, no health symptoms, six of seven physical tasks of daily living, and seven of seven instrumental tasks of daily living. With few exceptions, proxies were more likely than subjects to report the presence of a condition, symptom, or functional problem. Variations in agreement and bias were noted by subject and proxy characteristics, with different patterns observed for different measurement areas. When using proxy reports in place of self-reports, it is important to evaluate the impact that using proxies has on study results.
KW - activities of daily living
KW - aged
KW - bias
KW - chronic disease
KW - epidemiologic methods
KW - interviews
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U2 - 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a008740
DO - 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a008740
M3 - Article
C2 - 8561163
AN - SCOPUS:0030049926
SN - 0002-9262
VL - 143
SP - 283
EP - 292
JO - American journal of epidemiology
JF - American journal of epidemiology
IS - 3
ER -