Hartford Kathleen, Carey Robert, Mendonca James
Lawson Health Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 4G5.
Eval Health Prof. 2007 Mar;30(1):35-46. doi: 10.1177/0163278706297344.
Despite advances in the storage and retrieval of information within health care systems, health researchers conducting surveys for evaluations still face technical barriers that may lead to sampling bias. The authors describe their experience in administering a Web-based, international survey to English-speaking countries. Identifying the sample was a multistage effort involving (a) searching for published e-mail addresses, (b) conducting Web searches for publicly funded agencies, and (c) performing literature searches, personal contacts, and extensive Internet searches for individuals. After pretesting, the survey was converted into an electronic format accessible by multiple Web browsers. Sampling bias arose from (a) system incompatibility, which did not allow potential respondents to open the survey, (b) varying institutional gate-keeping policies that "recognized" the unsolicited survey as spam, (c) culturally unique program terminology, which confused some respondents, and (d) incomplete sampling frames. Solutions are offered to the first three problems, and the authors note that sampling bias remains a crucial problem.
尽管医疗保健系统在信息存储和检索方面取得了进展，但进行评估调查的健康研究人员仍然面临可能导致抽样偏差的技术障碍。作者描述了他们在对英语国家进行基于网络的国际调查时的经历。确定样本是一个多阶段的过程，包括：(a) 搜索已发表的电子邮件地址；(b) 对公共资助机构进行网络搜索；(c) 进行文献搜索、个人联系，并对个人进行广泛的互联网搜索。经过预测试后，该调查被转换为可由多个网络浏览器访问的电子格式。抽样偏差源于：(a) 系统不兼容，这使得潜在受访者无法打开调查；(b) 不同机构的把关政策将未经请求的调查视为垃圾邮件；(c) 具有文化独特性的项目术语，这使一些受访者感到困惑；以及(d) 不完整的抽样框架。针对前三个问题提供了解决方案，作者指出抽样偏差仍然是一个关键问题。
