Children are reliable reporters of common symptoms: results from a self-reported symptom diary for primary school children.
BACKGROUND
Collecting information on subjective symptoms in children by parental reports or physician's interview is indirect and not suited for prospective data collection over extended time periods.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the reliability of a diary for symptom self-reports by primary school children.


METHODS
Children aged 7-8 or 11-12 were recruited from primary school and a paediatric outpatient department. A picture-based symptom diary was completed individually. Children were asked about presence of 10 specified subjective symptoms for five time periods covering the previous 24 h. The diary was completed twice for test-retest and answers were compared with semi structured physician's interviews.


RESULTS
Test-retest reliability for reporting a symptom during the previous 24 h gave reliable kappa values of 0.64-0.91. Comparison with physician's interview gave kappas of 0.18-0.68. Requiring correct time of day for each symptom reduced reliability and validity. Kappa values for test-retest and child-physician agreement for the individual symptoms were respectively: sneezing, 0.80 and 0.30; sore throat, 0.89, 0.30; tiredness, 0.88, 0.65; headache, 0.64, 0.66; runny nose, 0.91, 0.68; sore eyes, 0.67, 0.18; cough, 0.73, 0.58; stomach ache, 0.69, 0.45.


CONCLUSIONS
Our symptom diary gives reliable self-report data from primary school children. It may be used for prospective symptom monitoring.
Lundqvist
C
C
HØKH, Research Centre, Akershus University Hospital, Oslo, Norway. christofer.lundqvist@medisin.uio.no
Rugland
E
E
Clench-Aas
J
J
Bartonova
A
A
Hofoss
D
D
D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results