Validity of Self-reported Smoking Using Saliva Cotinine Level Among Korean Adolescents

J Health Info Stat > Volume 35(1); 2010 > Article

J Health Info Stat 2010;35(1):41-52.

타액 중 코티닌 검출을 이용한 청소년 흡연 자가 보고의 타당도

설재웅 , 지선하 , 목예진 , 최문영 , 바이사 , 오희철

Validity of Self-reported Smoking Using Saliva Cotinine Level Among Korean Adolescents

Jae Woong Sull , Sun Ha Jee , Ye Jin Mok , Moon Young Choi , Hee Choul Ohrr , Bayasgalan Gombojav

ABSTRACT

Objectives:
This study was conducted to validate self-reported smoking using saliva cotinine among middle and high school students.
Methods:
A self report of smoking behavior was collected together with saliva sample for cotinine anlysis from 291 male and female students in middle and high school in 2003. Validity and agreement between self-reported smoking and saliva cotinine was analyzed with SAS 9.1 for different definitions of smoking status.
Results:
In validity test of male middle school students, sensitivity and specificity was 71.4 and 98.8. For male high school students, sensitivity and specificity was 100 and 80.6. In validity test of female high school students, sensitivity and specificity was 100 and 86.7. The concentrations of saliva cotinine were significantly different according to the smoking amount and the last time to smoke.
Conclusions:
The results showed the high validity of self-reported smoking among male and female high school students. However, due to the small sample size and limitation of the participants, it is cautious to generalize the results to all Korean adolescents.

Key words: saliva cotinine, smoking, sensitivity, specificity, adolescent