Development of a postal questionnaire to measure satisfaction with services received in the year before death.

Status

Active, not recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ISRCTN

Registry ID

ISRCTN12175122

Enrollment

230

Registered

2004-01-23

Start date

1995-06-23

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2015-01-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Symptoms and general pathology: Pain Signs and Symptoms Pain

Interventions

1. Postal questionnaire 2. Interview questionnaire

Eligibility

Inclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria: A random sample of death was drawn from death certificates of residents in an inner London health district who died from cancer and whose death were registered by someone resident in, or near, the district.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria: Not provided at time of registration

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
Questionnaire responses. Of the 431 informants who were sampled for this study, 230 agreed to take part giving a response rate of 53%. This corresponded to 56% of those approached to become postal respondents and 52% of the informants approached to become interviewees. These results demonstrate that the postal questionnaire is a viable alternative to interviews for use in collecting information on outcomes in palliative care, at least in terms of response rate. Overall the results of this study show that the postal questionnaires are a viable alternative to a face-to-face interview in retrospective bereavement surveys of care for the dying. However, particular care needs to be paid to ensuring that the wording of the questionnaire is ambivalent and are understood by members of the target population, and, in particular that respondents are helped to identify whether the deceased did in fact receive care from target services. The VOICES questionnaire is currently being revised in the light of these findings.	—

Measure

Time frame

Questionnaire responses. Of the 431 informants who were sampled for this study, 230 agreed to take part giving a response rate of 53%. This corresponded to 56% of those approached to become postal respondents and 52% of the informants approached to become interviewees. These results demonstrate that the postal questionnaire is a viable alternative to interviews for use in collecting information on outcomes in palliative care, at least in terms of response rate. Overall the results of this study show that the postal questionnaires are a viable alternative to a face-to-face interview in retrospective bereavement surveys of care for the dying. However, particular care needs to be paid to ensuring that the wording of the questionnaire is ambivalent and are understood by members of the target population, and, in particular that respondents are helped to identify whether the deceased did in fact receive care from target services. The VOICES questionnaire is currently being revised in the light of these findings.

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Secondary

Measure	Time frame
Not provided at time of registration	—

Countries

United Kingdom

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ISRCTN (via WHO ICTRP) · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026