How valid is adolescents' self-report as a way of assessing sun protection practices?

The accurate assessment of sun protective behaviors can assist in the effective targeting of preventive strategies.

This study explored the validity of self-report by adolescents in relation to parental/guardian reports using a scale to determine whether adolescents were accurately classified as adequately protected or not during the preceding weekend. The study sample was drawn from a school population and provided 53 matched adolescent and parental/guardian responses from 115 subjects (consent rate 46%). The validity of self-reports in relation to the level of protection afforded to a range of body parts (face, neck, shoulders, torso, etc.) was calculated. Calculations of sensitivity, which represented the proportion of cases in which the body part was classified as adequately protected by both the criterion reference and the self-report, and specificity, in which inadequate protection was confirmed by both the criterion reference and the self-report, were completed. In instances in which fewer than five observations fell into a cell, thereby limiting the accuracy of results, no measures were calculated.

Measures of sensitivity for the use of sun protection were legs (59%), neck (79%), feet (79%), face (92%), and shoulders, torso, and upper arms (98%). In contrast measures of specificity were face (61%), legs (80%), and neck (87%).

Although further studies of self-report methodologies with larger samples are required to verify these findings, the results suggest that adolescent self-report of solar protection is relatively valid and has the potential to be utilized with a degree of confidence to assess behavior.