Canadian Health Information Management Association Practice Exam

Which of the following terms is used to describe a bias where participants remember past events inaccurately?

1. Interviewer bias.

2. Non-response bias.

3. Recall bias.

4. Selection bias.

The correct answer is: Recall bias.

Recall bias refers specifically to the phenomenon where individuals do not accurately remember past events, which can lead to distorted results in research studies, particularly in those that involve self-reported data. This form of bias is particularly significant in retrospective studies, such as case-control studies, where participants are asked to remember and report information about their past experiences. When people struggle to accurately recall details or when their memories are influenced by their current knowledge or feelings, this can result in systematic inaccuracies in the data collected. This type of bias can affect various fields, especially in health research, where the accurate recollection of medical history, behaviors, or exposures is essential for establishing correlations or causations. For instance, patients may overestimate or underestimate their past health-related behaviors based on their current understanding or beliefs, leading to findings that may not reflect true associations. In contrast, the other terms reflect different types of biases. Interviewer bias occurs when the person conducting the interview influences the responses due to their own behavior or demeanor. Non-response bias arises when individuals who do not respond to surveys or studies differ significantly from those who do respond, potentially skewing the results. Selection bias occurs when the participants selected for a study are not representative of the larger population meant to be analyzed, often