Background Improving access to primary health care in the UK has focused on use of telephone and online access, but little is known about how awareness varies between different patient groups. Aim To determine patients are interacting with channels for accessing general practice services information, analyse this according characteristics status. Design & setting A cross-sectional self-admi...

Surveys reflect societal change in a way that few other research tools do. Over the past two decades, three developments have transformed surveys. First, survey organizations have adopted new methods for selecting telephone samples; these new methods were made possible by the creation of large databases that include all listed telephone numbers in the United States. A second development has bee...

BACKGROUND Measurement of socioeconomic position (SEP) over the life course in population health surveillance systems is important for examining differences in health and illness between different population groups and for monitoring the impact of policies and interventions aimed at reducing health inequities and intergenerational disadvantage over time. While face-to-face surveys are considere...

INTRODUCTION In 1994, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandated sufficient inclusion of racial and ethnic minorities in all federally funded research. This mandate requires researchers to monitor study samples for research participation and differential survey nonresponse. This study illustrates methods to assess differential survey nonresponse when population race data are inco...

OBJECTIVES To examine knowledge of chronic kidney disease in the general public. DESIGN Cross-sectional telephone survey. SETTING Hong Kong. PARTICIPANTS Community-dwelling adults who spoke Chinese in Hong Kong. RESULTS The response rate was 47.3% (516/1091) out of all subjects who were eligible to participate. The final survey population included 516 adults (55.6% female), of whom over...

OBJECTIVE To examine the attitudes of US patients about the use of placebo treatments in medical care. DESIGN One time telephone surveys. SETTING Northern California. PARTICIPANTS 853 members of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, aged 18-75, who had been seen by a primary care provider for a chronic health problem at least once in the prior six months. RESULTS The response rate was ...

This study contrasts two interviewing techniques that reflect different tacit assumptions about communication. In one, strictly standardized interviewing, interviewers leave the interpretation of questions up to respondents. In the other, conversational interviewing, interviewers say whatever it takes to make sure that questions are interpreted uniformly and as intended. Respondents from a nati...