title: Validation of women's self-reported smoking status in a Sydney colposcopy clinic.
abstract: This study validated a self-reported smoking prevalence questionnaire against urinary cotinine levels among women referred to a Sydney based public hospital colposcopy clinic over the period November 1997 to June 1998. Of 213 eligible women, 160 (75%) agreed to participate. Of these, 151 (94%) completed the smoking prevalence item and 130 (86%) also provided a urine specimen. 40% (95% CI: 33%-49%) of respondents self-reported as current smokers. Observed agreement between self-reported and biochemically validated smoking status was 94% compared with 52% chance agreement (kappa = 0.87, p<0.001). This high level of agreement was also robust to sensitivity analyses using a more conservative cutoff for the urinary cotinine levels. We conclude that self-reported smoking status provides valid estimates of actual rates of smoking among women referred with abnormal cervical smears.
authors.affiliation: Central Sydney Area Health Service, Australia.
authors.forename: N J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Donnelly
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Ward
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dalrymple
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000554:Ambulatory Care Facilities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003127:Colposcopy; D003367:Cotinine / Q000652:urine; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009517:New South Wales / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000652:urine; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D016387:Women's Health
chemical_list: D003367:Cotinine