Validity of self-reported osteoporosis in mid-age and older women

The validity of self-reported osteoporosis is often questioned, but validation studies are lacking. We validated self-reported prevalence and incidence of osteoporosis against self-reported and administrative data on medications. The concurrent validity was moderate to good for self-reported prevalent osteoporosis, but only poor to moderate for self-reported incident osteoporosis in mid-age and older women, respectively. Construct validity was acceptable for self-reported prevalent but not for incident osteoporosis.

The validity of self-reported osteoporosis is often questioned, but validation studies are lacking. The aim was to examine the validity of self-reported prevalence and incidence of osteoporosis against self-reported and administrative data on medications.

Data were from mid-age (56-61 years in 2007) and older (79-84 years in 2005) participants in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Self-reported diagnosis was compared with medication information from (1) self-report (n(mid) = 10,509 and n(old) = 7,072), and (2) pharmaceutical prescription reimbursement claims (n(mid) = 6,632 and n(old) = 4,668). Concurrent validity of self-report was examined by calculating agreement, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV). Construct validity was tested by examining associations of self-reported diagnosis with osteoporosis-related characteristics (fracture, weight, bodily pain, back pain, and physical functioning).

Agreement, sensitivity and PPV of self-reported prevalent diagnosis were higher when compared with medication claims (mid-age women: kappa = 0.51, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.46-0.56; older women: kappa = 0.65, 95% CI = 0.63-0.68) than with self-reported medication (mid-age women: kappa = 0.41, 95% CI = 0.37-0.45; older women: kappa = 0.57, 95% CI = 0.55-0.59). Sensitivity, PPV and agreement were lower for self-reported incident diagnosis (mid-age women: kappa = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.32-0.47; older women: kappa = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.51-0.61). Statistically significant associations between self-reported diagnosis and at least four of five characteristics were found for prevalent diagnosis in both age groups and for incident diagnosis in older women.

The concurrent validity was moderate to good for self-reported prevalent osteoporosis, but only poor to moderate for self-reported incident osteoporosis in mid-age and older women, respectively. Construct validity was acceptable for self-reported prevalent but not for incident osteoporosis.