OBJECTIVE: To study the feasibility of an anonymous coding procedure linking longitudinal information in a multi-center trial of substance abuse prevention among adolescents. METHODS: A school-based survey with re-test procedure was conducted among 485 students (mean age 13.8 years) from three countries at four study centers in order to study accuracy and repeatability of a self-generated anonymous code. RESULTS: Errors affected 18% of codes and 3% of all digits required for the code generation, with highest figures for two of the seven generation items. Sixty-one percent of the codes generated at the test were repeated identically at the re-test. Seventy-six percent of the codes could be linked excluding the 2 digits with the highest error rate in code generation, while 92% were linked using the best combination of the remaining seven or six digits. There was substantial variation between the centers in the results. CONCLUSIONS: Self-generation of anonymous codes is a feasible, but not a very efficient procedure to link longitudinal data among adolescents. Easy derivation and iterative matching procedures are crucial for achieving high efficiency of this type of anonymous linkage.
OBJECTIVE: To study the feasibility of an anonymous coding procedure linking longitudinal information in a multi-center trial of substance abuse prevention among adolescents. METHODS: A school-based survey with re-test procedure was conducted among 485 students (mean age 13.8 years) from three countries at four study centers in order to study accuracy and repeatability of a self-generated anonymous code. RESULTS: Errors affected 18% of codes and 3% of all digits required for the code generation, with highest figures for two of the seven generation items. Sixty-one percent of the codes generated at the test were repeated identically at the re-test. Seventy-six percent of the codes could be linked excluding the 2 digits with the highest error rate in code generation, while 92% were linked using the best combination of the remaining seven or six digits. There was substantial variation between the centers in the results. CONCLUSIONS: Self-generation of anonymous codes is a feasible, but not a very efficient procedure to link longitudinal data among adolescents. Easy derivation and iterative matching procedures are crucial for achieving high efficiency of this type of anonymous linkage.
Authors: Zila M Sanchez; Juliana Y Valente; Adriana Sanudo; Ana Paula D Pereira; Joselaine I Cruz; Daniela Schneider; Solange Andreoni Journal: Prev Sci Date: 2017-10
Authors: Roberta Siliquini; Simone Chiadò Piat; Francisco Alonso; Axel Druart; Marcin Kedzia; Antonio Mollica; Valeria Siliquini; Daniel Vankov; Anita Villerusa; Lamberto Manzoli Journal: BMC Public Health Date: 2010-04-26 Impact factor: 3.295
Authors: Sandra Braun; Christy Kollath-Cattano; Inti Barrientos; Raúl Mejía; Paola Morello; James D Sargent; James F Thrasher Journal: Tob Control Date: 2015-10-01 Impact factor: 7.552