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Using Plain Language and Adding Communication Technology to an Existing Health-Related Questionnaire to Help Generate Accurate Information: Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: Low-educated patients are disadvantaged in using questionnaires within the health care setting because most health-related questionnaires do not take the educational background of patients into account. The Dutch Talking Touch Screen Questionnaire (DTTSQ) was developed in an attempt to m...

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Autores principales: Welbie, Marlies, Wittink, Harriet, Westerman, Marjan J, Topper, Ilse, Snoei, Josca, Devillé, Walter LJM
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5938598/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29685873
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.7940
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author Welbie, Marlies
Wittink, Harriet
Westerman, Marjan J
Topper, Ilse
Snoei, Josca
Devillé, Walter LJM
author_facet Welbie, Marlies
Wittink, Harriet
Westerman, Marjan J
Topper, Ilse
Snoei, Josca
Devillé, Walter LJM
author_sort Welbie, Marlies
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Low-educated patients are disadvantaged in using questionnaires within the health care setting because most health-related questionnaires do not take the educational background of patients into account. The Dutch Talking Touch Screen Questionnaire (DTTSQ) was developed in an attempt to meet the needs of low-educated patients by using plain language and adding communication technology to an existing paper-based questionnaire. For physical therapists to use the DTTSQ as part of their intake procedure, it needs to generate accurate information from all of their patients, independent of educational level. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to get a first impression of the information that is generated by the DTTSQ. To achieve this goal, response processes of physical therapy patients with diverse levels of education were analyzed. METHODS: The qualitative Three-Step Test-Interview method was used to collect observational data on actual response behavior of 24 physical therapy patients with diverse levels of education. The interviews included both think-aloud and retrospective probing techniques. RESULTS: Of the 24 respondents, 20 encountered one or more problems during their response process. The use of plain language and information and communication technology (ICT) appeared to have a positive effect on the comprehensibility of the DTTSQ. However, it also had some negative effects on the interpretation, retrieval, judgment, and response selection within the response processes of the participants in this study. No educational group in this research population stood out from the rest in the kind or number of problems that arose. All respondents recognized themselves in the outcomes of the questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: The use of plain language and ICT within the DTTSQ had both positive and negative effects on the response processes of its target population. The results of this study emphasize the importance of earlier recommendations to accompany any adaption of any questionnaire to a new mode of delivery by demonstrating the difference and equivalence between the two different modes and to scientifically evaluate the applicability of the newly developed mode of the questionnaire in its intended setting. This is especially important in a digital era in which the use of plain language within health care is increasingly being advocated.
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spelling pubmed-59385982018-05-09 Using Plain Language and Adding Communication Technology to an Existing Health-Related Questionnaire to Help Generate Accurate Information: Qualitative Study Welbie, Marlies Wittink, Harriet Westerman, Marjan J Topper, Ilse Snoei, Josca Devillé, Walter LJM J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: Low-educated patients are disadvantaged in using questionnaires within the health care setting because most health-related questionnaires do not take the educational background of patients into account. The Dutch Talking Touch Screen Questionnaire (DTTSQ) was developed in an attempt to meet the needs of low-educated patients by using plain language and adding communication technology to an existing paper-based questionnaire. For physical therapists to use the DTTSQ as part of their intake procedure, it needs to generate accurate information from all of their patients, independent of educational level. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to get a first impression of the information that is generated by the DTTSQ. To achieve this goal, response processes of physical therapy patients with diverse levels of education were analyzed. METHODS: The qualitative Three-Step Test-Interview method was used to collect observational data on actual response behavior of 24 physical therapy patients with diverse levels of education. The interviews included both think-aloud and retrospective probing techniques. RESULTS: Of the 24 respondents, 20 encountered one or more problems during their response process. The use of plain language and information and communication technology (ICT) appeared to have a positive effect on the comprehensibility of the DTTSQ. However, it also had some negative effects on the interpretation, retrieval, judgment, and response selection within the response processes of the participants in this study. No educational group in this research population stood out from the rest in the kind or number of problems that arose. All respondents recognized themselves in the outcomes of the questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: The use of plain language and ICT within the DTTSQ had both positive and negative effects on the response processes of its target population. The results of this study emphasize the importance of earlier recommendations to accompany any adaption of any questionnaire to a new mode of delivery by demonstrating the difference and equivalence between the two different modes and to scientifically evaluate the applicability of the newly developed mode of the questionnaire in its intended setting. This is especially important in a digital era in which the use of plain language within health care is increasingly being advocated. JMIR Publications 2018-04-23 /pmc/articles/PMC5938598/ /pubmed/29685873 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.7940 Text en ©Marlies Welbie, Harriet Wittink, Marjan J Westerman, Ilse Topper, Josca Snoei, Walter LJM Devillé. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 23.04.2018. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Welbie, Marlies
Wittink, Harriet
Westerman, Marjan J
Topper, Ilse
Snoei, Josca
Devillé, Walter LJM
Using Plain Language and Adding Communication Technology to an Existing Health-Related Questionnaire to Help Generate Accurate Information: Qualitative Study
title Using Plain Language and Adding Communication Technology to an Existing Health-Related Questionnaire to Help Generate Accurate Information: Qualitative Study
title_full Using Plain Language and Adding Communication Technology to an Existing Health-Related Questionnaire to Help Generate Accurate Information: Qualitative Study
title_fullStr Using Plain Language and Adding Communication Technology to an Existing Health-Related Questionnaire to Help Generate Accurate Information: Qualitative Study
title_full_unstemmed Using Plain Language and Adding Communication Technology to an Existing Health-Related Questionnaire to Help Generate Accurate Information: Qualitative Study
title_short Using Plain Language and Adding Communication Technology to an Existing Health-Related Questionnaire to Help Generate Accurate Information: Qualitative Study
title_sort using plain language and adding communication technology to an existing health-related questionnaire to help generate accurate information: qualitative study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5938598/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29685873
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/jmir.7940
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