Nursing Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Nursing, including details on health care, hospital staff, professional care.

Issues in nursing: strategies for an Internet-based, computer-assisted telephone survey.

Piamjariyakul U, Bott MJ, Taunton RL

University of Kansas, Kansas City, Kansas, USA.

The study describes the design and implementation of an Internet-based, computed-assisted telephone survey about the care-planning process in 107 long-term care facilities in the Midwest. Two structured telephone surveys were developed to interview the care planning coordinators and their team members. Questionmark Perception Software Version 3 was used to develop the surveys in a wide range of formats. The responses were drawn into a database that was exported to a spreadsheet format and converted to a statistical format by the Information Technology team. Security of the database was protected. Training sessions were provided to project staff. The interviews were tape-recorded for the quality checks. The inter-rater reliabilities were above 95% to 100% agreement. Investigators should consider using Internet-based survey tools, especially for multisite studies that allow access to larger samples at less cost. Exploring multiple software systems for the best fit to the study requirements is essential.

Published 10 July 2006 in West J Nurs Res, 28(5): 602-9.
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