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Biomedical subjects

A Cartwright

Publications and source records attributed to A Cartwright.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Identification of people attending outpatients: congruity between hospital records and response to a postal screen.

A comparison of information obtained from a postal screen of people on the electoral register about attendance at outpatient clinics with data extracted from hospital records found agreement between the two sources for 87 per cent of people. This rose to 90 per cent after an interview follow-up of those whose replies were unclear. Given the complexities of defining outpatient attendances clearly, these levels of agreement seemed good. Fewer consultations were omitted by people when a three rather than a 12-month study period was used, but the particular three-month period used (January-March) may have contributed to this difference.

Data Collection↗

Who else responds to postal questionnaires? Are those involved in the subject of the study more likely to do so?

In a postal screen to identify people who had attended hospital outpatient departments, it was predicted that attenders would be more likely to respond than non-attenders. An experiment was set up to explore this. The response rates were 76 per cent among attenders compared with 70 per cent for the others--a difference which did not reach significance at the 5 per cent level.

Data Collection↗

Unintended pregnancies that lead to babies.

Among a random sample of women giving birth to a live baby in 1984 in England, just over a quarter described the pregnancy as unintended. This, together with the ratio of legal terminations to live or still births, suggests that about two-fifths of conceptions are unintended. Data from the study suggest that babies resulting from unintended pregnancies are somewhat disadvantaged physically as well as socially, while maternity services may contribute to the disadvantages.

Adolescent↗

Interviews or postal questionnaires? Comparisons of data about women's experiences with maternity services.

Surveys by personal interview are often assumed to be superior to those conducted by mail questionnaire. An experimental study of experiences and attitudes of 800 newly delivered mothers revealed surprising advantages to postal surveys: they are cheaper, more easily repeatable, and minimize interviewer effects. While response rates differed, the quality of responses was similar, except between middle- and working-class mothers. Postal surveys can be used with considerable assurance in national studies of fairly intimate experiences of pregnancy and delivery.

Asia↗

Monitoring maternity services by postal questionnaires to mothers.

There are a number of gaps in existing statistics about maternity services and no systematic collection of data about women's views and experiences of maternity care. Much useful information could be obtained by regular surveys of random samples of mothers obtained from birth registration. Results from a series of studies carried out by the Institute for Social Studies in Medical Care show that this is a practical and useful proposition.

Consumer Behavior↗