Data quality indicators for daily life chart methodology: prospective self-ratings of bipolar disorder and alcohol use

摘要

Background Self-rating instruments which require a large number of repeated assessments over time are increasingly popular in psychiatry. They are well suited to describing variations in mental states, especially in order to investigate effects of behaviour and events on functioning and mood. For bipolar disorder, the self-rating instrument ‘NIMH daily life chart’ was developed to assess the course of the illness. This instrument has been validated in the customary ways, yet information about data quality (e.g. completeness, consistency, construct validity, reactivity) was lacking. The goal of this study was to develop several data quality indicators computed from data, in order to be able to detect respondents that provide less valid or reliable data.