Self-administered surveys

The next step is to determine how the survey will be administered. The four main ways to administer surveys are self-administered, face to face, mail, and telephone. When patients self-administer the surveys, they can answer the questions on their own. They are sometimes more willing to be truthful with sensitive information, such as income or sexual orientation. This method decreases the bias that can be introduced by an interviewer and also is the least expensive method. The downside of self-administered surveys is that patients sometimes do not finish the surveys and that some disease states make it difficult for patients to self-administer (e.g., glaucoma, rheumatoid arthritis, and Parkinson s disease). 

The measurement goal in the HIE was to construct the best possible scales for measuring a broad array of functioning and well-being concepts it demonstrated the potential of scales, constructed from self-administered surveys, as reliable and valid tools for assessing changes in health status. It, however, left two questions unanswered Can methods of data collection and scale construction work in sick and elderly populations In addition, could scales that are more efficient be constructed The answer to these questions was the challenge... 

Despite working with a relatively large samples, most studies works with data from official collection or with self-administered surveys. This approach entails from the outset a bias resulting in the first case of mixing different realities and, in the second, there is no guarantee of re-presentativeness of the collected answers. 

The survey method relies heavily on interviews to gather data and typically involves little or no on-site verification or observation. Results can be obtained in a timely and cost-effective mannen however they may reflect the bias of the individual filling out a self-administered questionnaire. 

Clinical case reports and survey data point to incidences of intense violence in certain individuals self-administering high doses of amphetamine via the... 

In 1997, Landmark Healthcare Inc. commissioned a report entitled The Landmark Report on Public Perceptions of Alternative Care. They conducted 1500 telephone interviews in November 1997, using random digit selection. The survey included a representative sample of minority patients—85%o Caucasian, 8%o African-Americans, and 3% Hispanic. The survey found that 17%o of the U.S. population used botanical dietary supplements in the past year and even more striking, 75 /o of the U.S. population was most likely to use botanical products. Eighty-five percent of those reported to have taken a botanical supplement self-prescribed and self-administered the products. Three-fourths of patients who used alternative forms of care did so in conjunction with conventional medicine, yet 15% of patients replaced their conventional treatment with alternative care (16). 

Standardized questionnaires are used to capture HRQL data in a variety of settings. These standardized questionnaires may be self-administered or completed via telephone or personal interview, by observation, or by postal survey. Two basic approaches to HRQL measurement are available generic instruments that provide a summary of health-related quality of fife and specific instruments that focus on problems associated with individual disease states, patient groups, or areas of function. 

This surv cy included individuals 12 years of age or older. Personal and self-administered interview s were completed with 67,500 respondents. As it was a household survey, people such as military personnel in military installations, individuals in long-term hospitals, and prisoners were excluded from the sample. As a result, the data cannot be viewed as completely representative of everyone in the 50 states. Nevertheless, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health provides the best single description of frequency and quantity of drug use among a broad age range of people in U.S. society. 

As pharmacists, we can use evidence from patient self-administered health status surveys in caring for patients.A common model used in teaching students to monitor therapy is to first create a problem list and, for every problem on the list, develop an assessment and plan. The diagram in Fig. 4 breaks down the assessment process. It requires one to write a potential inventory of all monitoring parameters. It reminds and guides us to monitor both the efficacy and the toxicity using subjective and objective parameters appropriate for the disease and the treatment. 

The study of HRQOL requires a multidimensional approach. Assessments must include components that evaluate, at a minimum, the health concepts of physical functioning, social and role functioning, mental health, and perception of general health. In addition, the full continuum of these concepts must be included, from the most limited to the healthiest. Approaches to capture HRQOL data include the self-administered questionnaire, personal interview, telephone interview, observation, and postal survey. The assessment instruments must possess acceptable reliability, validity, and sensitivity, and the investigators and the participants must accept them. Psychometrics... 

A commonly used profile instrument is the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). This instrument includes nine health concepts or scales (Table 2-3). The SF-36 can be self-administered or administered by a trained interviewer (face to face or via telephone). This instrument has several advantages. For example, it is brief (it takes about 5-10 minutes to complete), and its reliability and validity have been documented in many clinical situations and disease states. " A means of aggregating the items into physical (PCS) and mental (MCS) component summary scores is available." In addition, an abbreviated version of the SF-36 containing only 12 items (SF-12) has been introduced." However, the scale scores and mental and physical component summary scores derived from the SF-12 are based on fewer items and fewer defined levels of health and, as a result, are estimated with less precision and less reliability. The loss of precision and reliability in measurement can be a problem in small samples and/or with small expected effect sizes for an intervention. 

The data from the Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals (CSFII) generated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1989 to 1995 rely on self-administered food consumption diaries for the second and third days of its 3 days of reporting (discussed in EPA 1997). The CSFII data have been used by the U.S. EPA to estimate fish consumption in the U.S. population (Jacobs et al. 1998) and to estimate MeHg intake (EPA 1997). The National Purchase Diary conducted by the Market Research Corporation used dietary diaries over 1-month periods between 1973 and 1974 (discussed in EPA 1997). The fish-consumption portions of these diary data were used to estimate MeHg exposure in the U.S. population (Stem 1993, EPA 1997). 

My approach to inclusion is derived from the Global Diversity Survey (CDS, 2003-2012), a self-administered, self-scoring tool that aims to help people enhance their competency to manage and value diversity and inclusion in the workplace. In use since 2003, this online tool prepares managers and employees, through a process of introspection, to ... 

Al-Khatib and colleagues (2005) assessed the ability of health-care practitioners to measure the QT interval correctly and to identify factors and medications that may increase the risk of QT interval prolongation and torsades de pointes. The survey was an anonymous, self-administered questionnaire that contained 20 questions about the QT interval. Just over 500 individuals completed the survey less than half (43 %) measured the QT interval correctly. The authors concluded as follows ... 

In order to examine and identify Safety Culture, a survey was conducted from four energy storage facilities in Cyprus (out of seven totally). A pilot study was conducted to identify the best possible methodological tool. A self-administered questionnaire, in the presence of the interviewer,... 

Many researchers have constructed items and surveys to measure general chemistry self-efficacy (see Table 1). In the paragraphs that follow, I briefly review those surveys. For example, in the USA, Smist (1993) used six questionnaire items to measure a sample of college students self-efficacy for learning chemistry. The items were administered to the students before and after they took a freshman general chemistry course. The internal consistency of data was high (Cronbach s a = 0.90), but the six items were not constructed to measure students self-efficacy for learning specific chemical concepts. 

The impact of an intervention can be measured by comparing perception surveys given before and after implementation. At one plant, our baseline Safety Culture Survey indicated that secretaries had below-average levels of perceived empowerment, as assessed by the measures of self-efficacy, personal control, and learned optimism described earlier in Chapter 15. A special recognition intervention was devised and later the survey was administered again to measure changes in the five actively caring person states as well as safety perceptions and attitudes. 

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