Institute of Public Health, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.
Age Ageing. 2012 Jan;41(1):70-5. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afr090. Epub 2011 Jul 27.
Violence is a very sensitive research topic and interview's setting might influence the participation rate and response accuracy. We aimed to evaluate such effect when assessing the prevalence of different types of violence in a sample of urban elderly by comparing those interviewed at home with those assessed at the research office.
Study subjects were members of a cohort of urban dwellers previously assembled using random digit dialling. The initial 450 individuals aged 60-84 years old were invited to participate in the present study, after being randomly allocated into two groups: 150 for being scheduled to research office interview and 300 to home interview. Both groups allocated were similar regarding gender, age, education, marital status and behavioural characteristics such as smoking and drinking alcohol. Information was obtained by face-to-face standardised interviews.
We obtained a participation rate of 67.0% in the group allocated to home interview and 70.7% in the other group (P = 0.431). No statistically significant differences were found when prevalence of violence during the previous year was compared according to the interview setting (physical 2.5 versus 1.0%, psychological 19.7 versus 19.0%, financial mistreatment 8.6 versus 9.5%, sexual 1.0 versus 1.0% and neglect 5.1 versus 3.8% in home and research office, respectively).
Our results indicate that the interview setting has no influence both in participation rate and in the prevalence estimates of different types of violence in the elderly.
暴力是一个非常敏感的研究课题，访谈的环境可能会影响参与率和应答的准确性。我们旨在评估在一个城市老年人样本中评估不同类型暴力的流行率时，通过比较在家中接受访谈和在研究办公室接受评估的受访者，评估这种影响。
研究对象是先前使用随机数字拨号法组建的城市居民队列中的成员。最初 450 名年龄在 60-84 岁之间的个体被邀请参加本研究，随后随机分为两组：150 名被安排在研究办公室接受访谈，300 名在家接受访谈。两组在性别、年龄、教育、婚姻状况和行为特征（如吸烟和饮酒）方面相似。通过面对面的标准化访谈获得信息。
在家接受访谈的组参与率为 67.0%，在其他组为 70.7%（P=0.431）。根据访谈环境比较前一年的暴力发生率时，没有发现统计学上的显著差异（身体暴力分别为 2.5%和 1.0%，心理暴力分别为 19.7%和 19.0%，经济虐待分别为 8.6%和 9.5%，性暴力分别为 1.0%和 1.0%，忽视分别为 5.1%和 3.8%）。
我们的结果表明，访谈环境对老年人不同类型暴力的参与率和流行率估计均没有影响。
