Patient-doctor Concordance in Elderly Women’s Self-reported Health and Medical Records

Objectives: To compare the chronic diseases mentioned by elderly women in an interview study with those documented in their respective medical records. Methods: The prevalence of positive diagnoses, overall agreement, and the kappa-coefficient were calculated for each group of diagnoses. Results: The lowest overall agreement was observed for psychiatric diseases, followed by diseases of the gastrointestinal system. Poor chance-adjusted agreement was found concerning diseases of the gastrointestinal system and diseases of the skin. Conclusions: The results suggest that a main reason for discordance was that the elderly women feared »losing face« by reporting some diseases.