Reliability of skin‐type self‐assessment: agreement of adolescents’ repeated Fitzpatrick skin phototype classification ratings during a cohort study

Abstract

Skin type appears to be a significant factor in psychological morbidity in acne. The FSPC is a reliable method for assessing skin phenotype, even when elicited via a concise questionnaire item suitable for assessing skin type as a potential confounder in studies of other outcome factors.

Treatment of Vitamin D Deficiency in Predominantly Hispanic and Black Adolescents: A Randomized Clinical Trial

“…Skin phototype was measured by participant report of their skin color match to a Fitzpatrick Skin Phototype Classification chart, ranging from Type I (burn always) to Type VI (never burn). 31 We designated season of enrollment as: Winter (December 22 to March 21); Spring (March 22 to June 21); Summer (June 22 to September 21); and Fall (September 22 to December 21). We calculated adherence as the percentage of prescribed doses taken based on a participant survey during the final week of treatment.…”

Phototype reproducibility and relation to objectively measured skin sensitivity is best when burn and tan reactivity to sun are answered separately

“…Our second finding is that agreement is good to very good for all phototype questionnaires, but it is best for the Short-q. It is not can be found in the study by Veierod et al 19 Analysing data from reproducibility studies, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12]20,21 we could conclude that if the ques-…”

“…tionnaire with combined answer is used, agreement varied from moderate (lowest κ w = .53) in a study by Rosso et al 6 to very good (highest κ w = .81) in a study by Magin et al, 11 but the authors of the latter study used quadratic weighted kappa, which is usually higher than the value of linear weighted kappa. 22 Agreement between the questions about tendency to burn was from poor (lowest κ w = .17) in a study by English et al 10 to good (highest κ w = .70, just 2 categories of answer) in a study by Glanz et al, 9 and it was in general lower than agreement between the questions about ability to tan, which was good (highest κ w = .77 in a study by English et al 10 ) in all studies except one by Beane Freeman et al, 12 where it was moderate (κ w = .58).…”

“…The answers about tendency to burn and ability to tan are either combined into one (as in the Fitzpatrick skin phototype [FST] classification) or they are given separately to each question . Studies have shown good‐to‐very‐good reproducibility (test‐retest agreement) of self‐assessed skin phototype, but it has not been investigated whether combined answers or separate answers have the best reproducibility.…”

“…classification) 6,7 or they are given separately to each question. [8][9][10] Studies 6,7,11,12 have shown good-to-very-good reproducibility (testretest agreement) of self-assessed skin phototype, but it has not been investigated whether combined answers or separate answers have the best reproducibility.…”