Student-parent agreement in self-reported sun behaviors

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Pediatrics
• Dermatology

Background:

• Accurate assessment of sun exposure and protective behaviors is crucial for skin cancer prevention strategies.
• Adolescent sun behaviors are often studied using self-report or parent proxy measures, but agreement between these methods is not well-established.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the agreement between adolescent self-reported sun behaviors and parent proxy reports for sun protective practices.
• To assess the reliability of adolescent self-reporting for sun exposure and protective behaviors in children aged 10-14 years.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional pilot study involving 50 student/parent pairs (students aged 10-14).
• Data collected via self-administered questionnaires assessing sun behaviors and protective practices.
• Agreement analyzed using weighted kappa statistics and mean differences.

Main Results:

• Good agreement (kappa = 0.52-0.73) was observed for skin color, sunscreen use, sunburn history, and sunscreen application.
• Lower agreement (kappa = 0.08-0.28) was found for wearing hats, shirts, seeking shade, and parental sunscreen application.
• Mean differences between student and parent reports were small, ranging from -0.39 to +0.25.

Conclusions:

• Adolescents aged 10-14 demonstrated a reasonable ability to recall their recent sun behaviors and protective practices.
• Findings suggest that adolescent self-reports can be a reliable measure for sun exposure in research, potentially reducing reliance on parent proxy measures.
• Further research is needed to validate these findings and establish gold standards for sun exposure assessment in pediatric populations.