Grube, Joel W and Morgan, Mark and Kearney, Kathleen A (1989) Using self-generated identification codes to match questionnaires in panel studies of adolescent substance use. Addictive Behaviors, 14, (2), pp. 159-171.
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The usefulness of self-generated codes for linking anonymous data in panel studies of adolescent substance use was investigated in a study of Irish post-primary students. These self-generated codes would generally consist of information provided by survey respondents about stable personal characteristics, for example, birth date or middle initial. This information would be combined into an identifier that could be used to link questionnaires in panel or longitudinal studies, but which preserved the anonymity of the individual respondent. The self-generated identification code used in the present study consisted of gender; month, day and year of birth; number of older brothers; number of older sisters; and initial letter of mother's first name. School and class level from which the questionnaire originated were also coded on the questionnaires and were used in the matching procedure. The study found that the seven-element code was successful in exactly pairing 71% of the maximum possible matches over a one-month period, after school absences had been taken into account.
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