How to integrate proxy data from two informants in life event assessment in psychological autopsy

• Published in: BMC psychiatry Vol. 18; no. 1; p. 115
• Main Authors: Zhang, Jie, Wang, Youqing, Fang, Le
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central Ltd 27.04.2018; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Analysis; Case-Control Studies; China; Family - psychology; Female; Health aspects; Humans; Informant; Informers; Interview, Psychological; Life Change Events; Life event; Male; Methodology; Methods; Middle Aged; Proxy - psychology; Proxy data; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychological autopsy; Reproducibility of Results; Suicide; Suicide - psychology; Suicide - statistics & numerical data; Surveys and Questionnaires; Young Adult; China; Life event; Proxy data; Psychological autopsy; Methodology; Suicide; Informant
• ISSN: 1471-244X; 1471-244X
• DOI: 10.1186/s12888-018-1698-7

Life event assessment is an important part in psychological autopsy, and how to integrate its proxy data from two informants is a major methodological issue which needs solving. Totally 416 living subjects and their two informants were interviewed by psychological autopsy, and life events were assessed with Paykel's Interview for Recent Life Events. Validities of integrated proxy data using six psychological autopsy information reconstruction methods were evaluated, with living subjects' self-reports used as gold-standard criteria. For all the life events, average value of Youden Indexes for proxy data by type C information reconstruction method (choosing positive value from two informants) was larger than other five methods'. For family life related events, proxy data by type 1st information reconstruction method were not significantly different from living subjects' self-reports (P = 0.828). For all other life events, proxy data by type C information reconstruction method were not significantly different from the gold-standard. Choosing positive value is a relatively better method for integrating dichotomous (positive vs. negative) proxy data from two informants in life event assessment in psychological autopsy, except for family life related events. In that case, using information provided by 1st informants (mainly family member) is recommended.