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Health technology assessment
The following are executive summaries of monographs published recently by the NHS R&D Health Technology Assessment programme.
Full versions of these monographs can be obtained (currently free of charge to the NHS and to other UK public sector employees including university staff) from the National Coordinating Centre for HTA (Fax: 023 8059 5639; E-mail: [email protected]; Web: www.ncchta.org; NHS Web: nww.ncchta.org).
A fully searchable CD-ROM of all HTA monographs is available free of charge from the above address.
Introduction
Questionnaires are often used to collect primary quantitative data from patients and health-care professionals. The aim is to gather valid, reliable, unbiased and discriminatory data from a representative sample of respondents. However, the information yielded is subject to error and bias from a range of sources. Close attention to issues of questionnaire design and survey administration can reduce these errors.
Objectives
A selective, narrative literature review was conducted to identify current best practice with respect to the design and conduct of questionnaire surveys, including theories of respondent behaviour, "expert opinion" and high-quality evidence from experimental studies. The principal focuses were:
* modes of survey administration (various forms of interviewer administration and self-completion);
* question wording, choice of response formats, and question sequencing; questionnaire formatting and other aspects of presentation;
* techniques for enhancing response rates, with particular emphasis on postal surveys.
Methods of the review and implications for readers
The starting-point for this review was "expert opinion", encapsulated in key textbooks on the design and conduct of surveys. High-grade evidence was then sought from experimental and quasiexperimental studies to support or refute the experts' recommendations. In addition, information was sought on the theoretical underpinnings of survey response. A deliberate and considered decision was made to include studies from disciplines other than health, because it was envisaged that theories of respondent behaviour, as well as methodological messages, are unlikely to be discipline-specific. The PsycLIT electronic database was therefore used in addition to MEDLINE, but the search was confined to articles published in the English language between 1975 and 1996. It acknowledged that confining the search to two databases only is likely to have led to bias in favour of articles published in the major American and British journals indexed on those databases, and...