@article{discovery21507,
            year = {2006},
           month = {August},
          volume = {6},
         journal = {BMC Neurology},
           title = {The frequency and validity of self-reported diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease in the UK elderly: MRC CFAS cohort},
            note = {{\copyright} 2006 Foltynie et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.},
       publisher = {BIOMED CENTRAL LTD},
            issn = {1471-2377},
        keywords = {PREVALENCE, ACCURACY, DISORDERS},
        abstract = {Background: Estimates of the incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases can be made using established cohort studies but these estimates may have lower reliability if based purely on self-reported diagnosis.Methods: The MRC Cognitive Function \& Ageing Study ( MRC CFAS) has collected longitudinal data from a population-based random sample of 13004 individuals over the age of 65 years from 5 centres within the UK. Participants were asked at baseline and after a two-year follow-up whether they had received a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. Our aim was to make estimates of the incidence and prevalence of PD using self-reporting, and then investigate the validity of self-reported diagnosis using other data sources where available, namely death certification and neuropathological examination.Results: The self-reported prevalence of Parkinson's disease ( PD) amongst these individuals increases with age from 0.7\% (95\% CI 0.5 - 0.9) for 65 - 75, 1.4\% ( 95\% CI 1.0 - 1.7) for 75 - 85, and 1.6\% ( 95\% CI 1.0 - 2.3) for 85+ age groups respectively. The overall incidence of self reported PD in this cohort was 200/100,000 per year ( 95\% CI 144 - 278). Only 40\% of the deceased individuals reporting prevalent PD and 35\% of those reporting incident PD had diagnoses of PD recorded on their death certificates. Neuropathological examination of individuals reporting PD also showed typical PD changes in only 40\%, with the remainder showing basal ganglia pathologies causing parkinsonism rather than true PD pathology.Conclusion: Self-reporting of PD status may be used as a screening tool to identify patients for epidemiological study, but inevitably identifies a heterogeneous group of movement disorders patients. Within this group, age, male sex, a family history of PD and reduced cigarette smoking appear to act as independent risk factors for self-reported PD.},
          author = {Foltynie, T and Matthews, FE and Ishihara, L and Brayne, C and MRC CFAS, The},
             url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2377-6-29}
}