title: Medical record review to recover missing data in a Portuguese birth cohort: agreement with self-reported data collected by questionnaire and inter-rater variability.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the yield of medical record review to recover missing data originally collected by questionnaire, to analyze the agreement between these two data sources and to determine interobserver variability in clinical record review.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analyzed data from a birth cohort of 8,127 women who were consecutively recruited after giving birth from 2005-2006. Recruitment was conducted at all public maternity units of Porto, Portugal. We reviewed the medical records of 3,657 women with missing data in the baseline questionnaire and assessed agreement between these two sources by using information from participants with data from both sources. Interobserver variability was assessed by using 400 randomly selected clinical records.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data on pregnancy complications and maternal anthropometric parameters were successfully recovered. Agreement between the questionnaire and records in family history data was fair, particularly for cardiovascular disease [k=0.27; 95% confidence interval (95%CI): 0.23-0.32]. The highest agreement was observed for personal history of diabetes (k=0.82; 95%CI 0.70-0.93), while agreement for hypertension was moderate (k=0.60; 95%CI 0.50-0.69). Discrepancies in prepregnancy body mass index classes were observed in 10.3% women. Data were highly consistent between the two reviewers, with the highest agreement found for gestational diabetes (k=1.00) and birth weight (99.5% concordance).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Data from the medical records and questionnaire were concordant with regard to pregnancy and well-known risk factors. The low interobserver variability did not threaten the precision of our data.
authors.affiliation: Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Porto Medical School, Porto, Portugal. ealves@med.up.pt
authors.forename: Elisabete
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Alves
authors.forename: Nuno
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lunet
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Correia
authors.forename: Vítor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Morais
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Azevedo
authors.forename: Henrique
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Barros
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001724:Birth Weight; D015992:Body Mass Index; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D003696:Delivery Rooms / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016640:Diabetes, Gestational / Q000453:epidemiology; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D055991:Health Records, Personal; D006753:Hospital Records / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006769:Hospitals, General / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006771:Hospitals, Maternity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006779:Hospitals, Public / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D046110:Hypertension, Pregnancy-Induced / Q000453:epidemiology; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D011174:Portugal; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011249:Pregnancy Complications, Cardiovascular / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D057566:Self Report; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult