Bmc Med Res Methodol
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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.
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Jan 2008
Randomized Controlled TrialUse of the Oxford Handicap Scale at hospital discharge to predict Glasgow Outcome Scale at 6 months in patients with traumatic brain injury.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an important cause of acquired disability. In evaluating the effectiveness of clinical interventions for TBI it is important to measure disability accurately. The Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) is the most widely used outcome measure in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in TBI patients. However GOS measurement is generally collected at 6 months after discharge when loss to follow up could have occurred. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the association and predictive validity between a simple disability scale at hospital discharge, the Oxford Handicap Scale (OHS), and the GOS at 6 months among TBI patients. ⋯ We have shown that the OHS, a simple disability scale available at hospital discharge can predict disability accurately, according to the GOS, at 6 months. OHS could be used to improve the design and analysis of clinical trials in TBI patients and may also provide a valuable clinical tool for physicians to improve communication with patients and relatives when assessing a patient's prognosis at hospital discharge.