Résumé :
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[BDSP. Notice produite par INIST e1R0xV05. Diffusion soumise à autorisation]. Our objectives were (1) to analyze the refusal bias associated with postal questionnaires and face to-face interviews and (2) to compare responses elicited from a postal questionnaire with those provided by a face-to-face interview in subjects over 75 years of age. Our methods included a postal questionnaire sent to a representative sample of community-dwelling elderly individuals (n=842). All subjects were also invited to participate in an in-home interview conducted by a trained nurse. One hundred and six subjects (12.6%) were nonrespondents to the postal questionnaire. These nonrespondents were more cognitively impaired, more disabled, and showed a higher 1-year mortality rate (13.2 versus 5.2%) than respondents. Late respondents who needed a reminder letter were similar to nonrespondents. One hundred and eighty-seven subjects (22.2%) refused to participate in the home interview. These nonparticipants were similar to the participants on age, sex, 1-year mortality rate, and responses given to all but two postal questions. Comparison of postal questionnaire responses and face-to-face responses revealed that agreement was substantial to moderate for factual information (kappa=0.41 to 0.80) but poor for clinical information (depression, cognitive impairment, disability). A short index including age, sex, and six questions on disability was useful in identifying disabled subjects by a postal questionnaire. (...)
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