| Summary: | BACKGROUND: Information on data quality (e.g., disparity between the survey response and a true value) is an important output of major Federal surveys because survey data often are used to influence policy decisions. One way of assessing data quality is reinterviewing survey respondents to assess survey response reliability or consistency. This report presents findings from a reinterview study of respondents to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). METHOD: The Reliability Study was embedded within the 2006 NSDUH main study. A subsample of the main study sample of 67,802 was selected such that data from the initial interview were used for both the main study and the Reliability Study. Of the 3,516 respondents selected for reinterview, 3,136 respondents participated. The second interviews were conducted 5 to 15 days following the initial interview. RESULTS: Responses for substance use in the lifetime had almost perfect reliability, and responses for substance use in the past year showed substantial agreement. Measures of mental health problems, such as serious psychological distress and depression, were often of only moderate reliability or less. CONCLUSION: The analysis of the NSDUH questions in this study showed that questions about factual personal events were more reliable than questions that asked for a respondent's opinion or intentions or questions that addressed issues that carried social stigma
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