Subjective health complaints in adolescence—Reliability and validity of survey methods

• Published in: Journal of adolescence (London, England.) Vol. 24; no. 5; pp. 611 - 624
• Main Authors: HAUGLAND, SIREN, WOLD, BENTE
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2001; Elsevier Science; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: Adolescent; Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Chi-Square Distribution; Female; Health; Health Status Indicators; Humans; Interviews as Topic; Male; Medical sciences; Mental Health; Norway - epidemiology; Psychology, Adolescent; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychometrics; Psychometrics. Diagnostic aid systems; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reproducibility of Results; Selfreport; Surveys; Techniques and methods; Teenagers; Test-Retest reliability; Validity; Young people; Norway; Human; Item analysis; Test validation; Evaluation; Questionnaire; Subjective experience; Adolescent; Somatic complaint; Psychometrics; Revised drafting; Test reliability; Intertrial interval
• ISSN: 0140-1971; 1095-9254
• DOI: 10.1006/jado.2000.0393

This paper studies test–retest reliability and validity of one measure of adolescent health complaints. The test–retest included an eight-item symptom checklist developed for the survey of Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (n=344). Qualitative analysis showed adequate validity for most items. For the total sample, all items were found to have adequate intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) in the range 0·61–0·75. There were inter-item differences and girls generally received the higher values. Most changes were within one category. Adolescents' understanding of 16 complaints was studied by interviews with 38 adolescents. A few items showed ambiguity in interviews despite adequate test–retest stability.