Elderly people respond well to assessment by postal questionnaire

Postal questionnaires for brief screening assessment in elderly people are associated with a higher response rate, higher proportion of missing values, and a higher proportion of self reported morbidity than interviews by nurses or lay people. The national service framework for elderly people recommends that older people receive a single assessment but does not specify the method. Smeeth and colleagues (p 1403) conducted a randomised comparison of methods in 32 990 people aged 75 and over in 106 general practices throughout the United Kingdom. The effects of these differences in health outcome are being evaluated by an ongoing MRC trial of the assessment and management of older people in the community.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Randomised comparison of three methods of administering a screening questionnaire to elderly people: findings from the MRC trial of the assessment and management of older people in the community

Liam Smeeth, Astrid E Fletcher, Susan Stirling, Maria Nunes, Elizabeth Breeze, Edmond Ng, Christopher J Bulpitt, and Dee Jones
BMJ 2001 323: 1403. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]