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Validity of age at menarche self-reported in adulthood

¹ MRC National Survey of Health and Development, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, UK
² Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, Durham, UK
³ Paediatric and Lifecourse Epidemiology Research Group, School of Clinical Medical Sciences, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
R Cooper
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, 1–19 Torrington Place, London WC1E 6BT, UK;rachel.cooper{at}ucl.ac.uk

Objective: To test the validity of age at menarche self-reported in adulthood and examine whether socioeconomic position, education, experience of gynaecological events and psychological symptoms influence the accuracy of recall.

Design: Prospective birth cohort study.

Setting: England, Scotland and Wales.

Participants: 1050 women from the Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development, with two measures of age at menarche, one recorded in adolescence and the other self-reported at age 48 years.

Results: By calculating the limits of agreement, statistic and Pearson’s correlation coefficients (r), we found that the validity of age at menarche self-reported in middle age compared with that recorded in adolescence was moderate ( = 0.35, r = 0.66, n = 1050). Validity was improved by categorising age at menarche into three groups: early, normal and late ( = 0.43). Agreement was influenced by educational level and having had a stillbirth or miscarriage.

Conclusions: The level of validity shown in this study throws some doubt on whether it is justifiable to use age at menarche self-reported in middle age. It is likely to introduce error and bias, and researchers should be aware of these limitations and use such measures with caution.

Abbreviations: MRC NSHD, Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development

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