Socio-demographic correlates of diabetes self-reporting validity: a study on the adult Kurdish population

In this research, data of the DehPCS study were used to assess the validity of self-reported diabetes based on the reference criteria, including the history of taking oral anti-diabetic drugs, insulin injection, or high fasting blood sugar.

A cross-sectional analytical study was performed on 4400 participants of the DehPCS study, aged 35-70 years. The reference criteria were oral hypoglycemic drug consumption, insulin injection, and/ or fasting blood sugar ≥126 (mg/dl). The self-reporting diabetes was investigated by well-trained interviewers before the diabetes diagnosis based on the reference criteria. The validity of self-reporting diabetes was assessed using sensitivity, specificity, as well as positive and negative predictive values. Socio-demographic correlates of self-reported agreement were examined by multinomial logistic regression.

Three thousand nine hundred ninety-six people participated in this study, and the participation rate was equal to 90.8%. The diabetes prevalence among the study population was 13.1% based on self-reports and 9.7% based on the reference criteria. Five hundred twenty-three participants reported diabetes, 213 (41.28%) of whom did not have it. We found a good agreement of 92.3% with an acceptable kappa value of 65.1% between self-reporting diabetes and the reference criteria. Diabetes self-reporting also guaranteed sensitivity of 78.5%, specificity of 93.9%, as well as the positive and negative predictive values of 58.7% and of 98.0%, respectively. Being female, the higher economic class, the higher body mass index (BMI), and the positive family history of diabetes increased the chance of false positive. Being male, older ages and the moderate economic class increased the chance of false positive.

Self-reporting diabetes is identified as a relatively valid tool which could fairly determine the diabetes prevalence in epidemiological studies. It should be noted that its validity is influenced by some socio-demographic characteristics.