Bmc Med Res Methodol
-
Bmc Med Res Methodol · Jan 2008
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyTowards socially inclusive research: an evaluation of telephone questionnaire administration in a multilingual population.
Missing data may bias the results of clinical trials and other studies. This study describes the response rate, questionnaire responses and financial costs associated with offering participants from a multilingual population the option to complete questionnaires over the telephone. ⋯ Studies requiring data to be collected by questionnaire may obtain higher response rates from both English and non-English speakers when a choice of telephone or postal administration (and where necessary, an interpreter)is offered compared to offering postal administration only. This approach will, however, incur additional research costs and uncertainty remains about the equivalence of responses obtained from the two methods.
-
Bmc Med Res Methodol · Jan 2008
Comparative StudyResponsiveness of five condition-specific and generic outcome assessment instruments for chronic pain.
Changes of health and quality-of-life in chronic conditions are mostly small and require specific and sensitive instruments. The aim of this study was to determine and compare responsiveness, i.e. the sensitivity to change of five outcome instruments for effect measurement in chronic pain. ⋯ The MPI was most responsive in all comparable domains followed by the SF-36. The pain-specific MPI and the generic SF-36 can be recommended for comprehensive and specific bio-psycho-social effect measurement of health and quality-of-life in chronic pain.
-
Bmc Med Res Methodol · Jan 2008
The changing causal foundations of cancer-related symptom clustering during the final month of palliative care: a longitudinal study.
Symptoms tend to occur in what have been called symptom clusters. Early symptom cluster research was imprecise regarding the causal foundations of the coordinations between specific symptoms, and was silent on whether the relationships between symptoms remained stable over time. This study develops a causal model of the relationships between symptoms in cancer palliative care patients as they approach death, and investigates the changing associations among the symptoms and between those symptoms and well-being. ⋯ Some of the causal forces explaining the variations in, and relationships among, palliative care patients' symptoms changed over the final month of life. This illustrates how investigating the causal foundations of symptom correlation or clustering can provide more detailed understandings that may contribute to improved control of patient comfort, quality of life, and quality of death.
-
Bmc Med Res Methodol · Jan 2008
Accuracy of self-reported body weight, height and waist circumference in a Dutch overweight working population.
In population studies, body mass index (BMI) is generally calculated from self-reported body weight and height. The self-report of these anthropometrics is known to be biased, resulting in a misclassification of BMI status. The aim of our study is to evaluate the accuracy of self-reported weight, height and waist circumference among a Dutch overweight (Body Mass Index [BMI] > or = 25 kg/m2) working population, and to determine to what extent the accuracy was moderated by sex, age, BMI, socio-economic status (SES) and health-related factors. ⋯ Results suggest that self-reported BMI and WC are satisfactorily accurate for the assessment of the prevalence of overweight/obesity and increased WC in a middle-aged overweight working population. As the accuracy of self-reported anthropometrics is affected by measured weight, height, WC, smoking status and/or SES, results for these subgroups should be interpreted with caution. Due to the large power of our study, the clinical significance of our statistical significant findings may be limited.
-
Bmc Med Res Methodol · Jan 2008
ReviewNegative pressure wound therapy: potential publication bias caused by lack of access to unpublished study results data.
Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) is widely applied, although the evidence base is weak. Previous reviews on medical interventions have shown that conclusions based on published data alone may no longer hold after consideration of unpublished data. The main objective of this study was to identify unpublished randomised controlled trials (RCTs) on NPWT within the framework of a systematic review. ⋯ Multi-source comprehensive searches identify unpublished RCTs. However, lack of access to unpublished study results data raises doubts about the completeness of the evidence base on NPWT.