%0 Journal Article
%T A population based validation study of self-reported pensions and benefits: the Nord-Tr£¿ndelag health study (HUNT)
%A Solbj£¿rg Makalani Myrtveit
%A Anja M S Ariansen
%A Ingvard Wilhelmsen
%A Steinar Krokstad
%A Arnstein Mykletun
%J BMC Research Notes
%D 2013
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1756-0500-6-27
%X We aimed to estimate the validity of self-reported disability pension, rehabilitation benefit and retirement pension and to explore the benefit status and basic characteristics of those not responding to these items.A large health survey (HUNT2) containing self-reported questionnaire data on sickness benefits and pensions was linked to a national registry of pensions and benefits, used as ¡°gold standard¡± for the analysis. We investigated two main sources of bias in self-reported data; misclassification - due to participants answering questions incorrectly, and systematic missing/selection bias - when participants do not respond to the questions.Sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predicative value, agreement and Cohen¡¯s Kappa were calculated for each benefit. Co-variables were compared between non-responders and responders.In the study-population of 40,633, 9.2% reported receiving disability pension, 1.4% rehabilitation benefits and 6.1% retirement pension. According to the registry, the corresponding numbers were 9.0%, 1.7% and 5.4%. Excluding non-responders, specificity, NPV and agreement were above 98% for all benefits. Sensitivity and PPV were lower. When including non-responders as non-receivers, specificity got higher, sensitivity dropped while the other measures changed less.Between 17.7% and 24.1% did not answer the questions on benefits. Non-responders were older and more likely to be female. They reported more anxiety, more depression, a higher number of somatic diagnoses, less physical activity and lower consumption of alcohol (p£¿<£¿0.001 for all variables). For disability pension and retirement pension, non-responders were less likely to receive benefits than responders (p£¿<£¿0.001). For each benefit 2.1% or less of non-responders were receivers. False positive responses were more prevalent than false negative responses.The validity of self-reported data on disability pension, rehabilitation benefits and retirement pension is high ¨C
%K Validity
%K Bias
%K Epidemiology
%K Non-responders
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/6/27