Reliability of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey Questionnaire.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) has been used on a biennial basis since 1990 to measure health risk behaviors of high school students nationwide. The YRBS measures behaviors related to intentional and unintentional injury, tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, sexual activity, diet, and physical activity. The authors present the results from a test-retest reliability study of the YRBS, conducted by administering the YRBS questionnaire to 1,679 students in grades 7 through 12 on two occasions 14 days apart. The authors computed a kappa statistic for each of 53 self-report items and compared group prevalence estimates across the two testing occasions. Kappas ranged from 14.5% to 91.1%; 71.7% of the items were rated as having "substantial" or higher reliability (kappa = 61-100%). No significant differences were found between the prevalence estimates at time 1 and time 2. Responses of seventh grade students were less consistent than those of students in higher grades, indicating that the YRBS is best suited for students in grade 8 and above. Except for a few suspect items, students appeared to report personal health risk behaviors reliably over time. Reliability and validity issues in health behavior assessment also are discussed.

[1]  S. Potthoff,et al.  The Validity of Self‐Reported Condom Use Among Adolescents , 1997, Sexually transmitted diseases.

[2]  B. Speck,et al.  The Youth Health Survey: reliability and validity of an instrument for assessing cardiovascular health habits in adolescents. , 1996, The Journal of school health.

[3]  A. Kriska,et al.  Reproducibility and validity of an epidemiologic questionnaire to assess past year physical activity in adolescents. , 1995, American journal of epidemiology.

[4]  C. Leduc,et al.  Validity and reliability of a self report Suicide Ideation Scale for use with adolescents , 1994 .

[5]  W. Popham.  Appraising two techniques for increasing the honesty of students' answers to self-report assessment devices , 1993 .

[6]  J. Sallis,et al.  Seven-day recall and other physical activity self-reports in children and adolescents. , 1993, Medicine and science in sports and exercise.

[7]  L. Kann,et al.  Overview of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. , 1993, Public health reports.

[8]  M. Davoli,et al.  Reliability of Sexual Behavior Data among High School Students in Rome , 1992, Epidemiology.

[9]  M. Fisher,et al.  Substance use in a school-based clinic population: use of the randomized response technique to estimate prevalence. , 1992, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[10]  B. Flay,et al.  Validity of Alternative Self-Report Indices of Smoking Among Adolescents , 1990 .

[11]  K. Winters,et al.  Validity of adolescent self-report of alcohol and other drug involvement. , 1990, The International journal of the addictions.

[12]  G. Koch,et al.  On the measurement of tobacco use by adolescents. Validity of self-reports of smokeless tobacco use and validity of cotinine as an indicator of cigarette smoking. , 1989, American journal of epidemiology.

[13]  I. Newman,et al.  Assessing the Validity of Self-Reported Adolescent Cigarette Smoking , 1988, Journal of drug education.

[14]  W. Willett,et al.  Misinterpretation and misuse of the kappa statistic. , 1987, American journal of epidemiology.

[15]  J. Rosen,et al.  The validity of self-reported weight loss and weight gain efforts in adolescents , 1987 .

[16]  C. Perry,et al.  The validity of smoking self-reports by adolescents: a reexamination of the bogus pipeline procedure. , 1987, Addictive behaviors.

[17]  R. Akers,et al.  Are self-reports of adolescent deviance valid? Biochemical measures, randomized response, and the bogus pipeline in smoking behavior. , 1983 .

[18]  L. Johnston,et al.  Reliability and consistency in self-reports of drug use. , 1983, The International journal of the addictions.

[19]  J. Lorence,et al.  Reliability and validity of adolescent self-reported drug use in a family-based study: a methodological report. , 1983, The International journal of the addictions.

[20]  G. Botvin,et al.  Validation of students' self-reported cigarette smoking status with plasma cotinine levels. , 1979, American journal of public health.

[21]  J. R. Landis,et al.  The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. , 1977, Biometrics.