Linking questionnaires to primary care records: factors affecting consent in older people

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Abstract
A detailed account of the survey methods has already been published.6 A postal survey was conducted, with an offer of assistance in completion, with patients aged ⩾65 years from two London practices. The questionnaire is available on request from the authors and is also on the journal web site (http://www.jech.com/supplemental) and included details on: demographic factors; physical health; psychological measures (including depression, anxiety, and health beliefs); social support; socioeconomic measures; and a request for consent to link questionnaire data with subjects’ computerised primary care records. Logistic regression was used to examine associations between other factors and consent to link, with results expressed as odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Three groups (questionnaire non-responders; responders withholding consent to link; and responders giving their consent to link) were created on the practice computer system. The number of primary care consultations for the 12 month period after the questionnaire, was downloaded for each group, with no identifying individual data. Crude mean consultation rates for each group were estimated from total number of consultations and number of subjects per group. The 95% confidence limits were based on assuming these were generated by a Poisson process with over-dispersion parameter 2.1 (estimated from earlier data on individual level consultation rates from responders who gave consent to linkage).

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