Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T23:58:25.131Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A comparison of different sources of information about pregnancy and childbirth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Ann Oakley ,
Lynda Rajan  and
Penrose Robertson
Ann Oakley
Affiliation:
Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London
Lynda Rajan
Affiliation:
Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London
Penrose Robertson
Affiliation:
Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Different methods of obtaining information in medical and social research present problems of interpretation for the researcher. However, there are few systematic studies on the extent of the lack of concordance yielded by different methods. This paper uses data from a randomized controlled trial of social support in pregnancy to examine this issue in relation to three methods of data collection—medical records, home interviews and a postal questionnaire—on the following topics: obstetric history; smoking, alcohol use, number of antenatal hospital visits, bleeding and depression in pregnancy; length of labour; baby's sex, birthweight and neonatal health problems; and ethnicity. Considerable discrepancies are found comparing the different data sources. These suggest that mothers may be more reliable sources of information than medical records, and that the anonymity of a postal questionnaire may provide higher estimates than home interviews on some sensitive topics, such as smoking in pregnancy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , October 1990 , pp. 477 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cartwright, A., Jaccoby, A. & Martin, C. (1987) Problems extracting data from hospital maternity records. Community Med. 9, 286.Google ScholarPubMed
Cartwright, A. & Smith, C. (1979) Some comparisons of data from medical records and from interviews with women who had recently had a live birth or stillbirth. J. biosoc. Sci. 11, 49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Joffe, M. & Grisso, J. A. (1985) Comparison of ante-natal hospital records with retrospective interviewing. J. biosoc. Sci. 17, 113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, C. J. (1987) Monitoring maternity services by postal questionnaire: congruity between mothers' reports and their obstetric records. Statistics in Med. 6, 613.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, J. & Monk, J. (1982) Infant Feeding 1980. HM Stationery Office, London.Google Scholar
Oakley, A. (1989) Smoking in pregnancy: smokescreen or risk factor? Towards a materialist analysis. Sociol. Hlth Illness, 11, 311.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Oakley, A., Rajan, L. & Grant, A. (1990) Social support and pregnancy outcome: report of a randomised trial. Br. J. Obstet. Gynaec. 97, 55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seidman, D. S., Slater, P. E., Ever-Hadani, P. & Gale, R. (1987) Accuracy of mothers' recall of birthweight and gestational age. Br. J. Obstet. Gynaec. 94, 731.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed