Validity of 12-Month Falls Recall in Community-Dwelling Older Women Participating in a Clinical Trial

Table 3

Cross tabulation of falls by best agreement between monthly ascertainment and 12-month recall category question.

12-month falls recall	Daily falls calendar				Sensitivity of 12-month recall
	No falls	Few; (1 to 4 falls)	Several; (5 to 7 falls)	Regularly; (8+ falls)
No falls	1128	203	3	0
Few	65	589	11	2	68%
Several	5	70^1	7	4	30%
Regularly	0	4	2	3	33%
	1198	866	23	9

Only 14% () had 4 falls, so reclassifying the criteria of the “few” category to be only 1 to 3 falls did not improve the agreement between the daily falls calendar totals and the 12-month falls recall. Sixty-five percent of these women fell only once or twice ().