[Evaluation of the self-administered respiratory questionnaire recommended by the Japanese Labour Ministry based on the standardized interviewer-administered BMRC questionnaire].
The self-administered respiratory questionnaire on persistent cough or sputum prepared and recommended by the Japanese Labour Ministry to detect pneumoconiosis was evaluated and compared with the Japanese version of the standardized interviewer-administered respiratory questionnaire developed by the British Medical Research Council (BMRC). The two questionnaires were given to 800 subjects on the same day. Because the wording of the questions was similar, the two questionnaires yielded very similar results. In terms of the overall prevalence of persistent cough or sputum, no important differences could be demonstrated between the results of the two questionnaires. The results of this study indicate that the self-administered questionnaire has good concordance with the BMRC questionnaire. When compared to the BMRC questionnaire, the specificity of the self-administered questionnaire was found to be more than 99%, but the sensitivity was inferior to the specificity, being less than 80%. When confined to subjects with persistent cough or sputum for two years or more, the sensitivity was up to 84%. These findings suggest the responses of the subjects to the self-administered questionnaire tend to be negative. A validity of the self-administered questionnaire needs to be further studied among dust workers including pneumoconiotics.
Kusaka
Y
Y
Department of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, Medical School, Osaka University.
Yokoyama
K
K
Sera
Y
Y
Shirakawa
T
T
Goto
S
S
Morimoto
K
K
D000328:Adult; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008669:Metallurgy; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D011009:Pneumoconiosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D012907:Smoking; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*