Validation of a questionnaire on medical drug use during pregnancy.

The validity of a questionnaire on medical drug use during pregnancy was tested against information collected 7 years previously (in 1983-1984) at the University Hospital of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The study population consisted of women with high-risk pregnancies. The sensitivity for drug categories varied between 0% and 80%. The sensitivity was highest for drugs used during labor (77%) and was extremely low (0%) for some drug categories. Personal characteristics thought to influence the sensitivity, such as parity of the mother and method of data collection (postal questionnaire or personal interview), showed no statistically significant effect. The newly developed questionnaire needs further improvement.