[Validity of the occupational history assessed by interview]

The study was carried out on 114 workers of a large firm in the city of Barcelona. Its objectives were to measure the validity of a questionnaire on professional history, achieved by telephone interviews, using the firm's employee register and to identify the socio-professional characteristics associated with the firm. The validity of the main and secondary occupation (name and length of the occupation) was assessed by company reported information with that in the firm's registry, which was considered as a reference criterion. The validity of the name of the main and secondary occupation was 88% and 74% respectively and the validity of their length was 57% and 64.4% respectively. The validity of professional history, in as much as the name of the main and secondary occupation was high. The validity of their length was low.