Rueegg, C.S., Gianinazzi, M.E., Michel, G. orcid.org/0000-0002-9589-0928 et al. (15 more authors) (2017) No evidence of response bias in a populationbased childhood cancer survivor questionnaire survey-Results from the Swiss Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. PLoS ONE, 12 (5). e0176442..
Abstract
Purpose
This is the first study to quantify potential nonresponse bias in a childhood cancer survivor questionnaire survey. We describe early and late responders and nonresponders, and estimate nonresponse bias in a nationwide questionnaire survey of survivors.
Methods
In the Swiss Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, we compared characteristics of early responders (who answered an initial questionnaire), late responders (who answered after ≥1 reminder) and nonresponders. Sociodemographic and cancer-related information was available for the whole population from the Swiss Childhood Cancer Registry. We compared observed prevalence of typical outcomes in responders to the expected prevalence in a complete (100% response) representative population we constructed in order to estimate the effect of nonresponse bias. We constructed the complete population using inverse probability of participation weights.
Results
Of 2328 survivors, 930 returned the initial questionnaire (40%); 671 returned the questionnaire after ≥1reminder (29%). Compared to early and late responders, we found that the 727 nonresponders (31%) were more likely male, aged <20 years, French or Italian speaking, of foreign nationality, diagnosed with lymphoma or a CNS or germ cell tumor, and treated only with surgery. But observed prevalence of typical estimates (somatic health, medical care, mental health, health behaviors) was similar among the sample of early responders (40%), all responders (69%), and the complete representative population (100%). In this survey, nonresponse bias did not seem to influence observed prevalence estimates.
Conclusion
Nonresponse bias may play only a minor role in childhood cancer survivor studies, suggesting that results can be generalized to the whole population of such cancer survivors and applied in clinical practice.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Rueegg et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jul 2017 10:36 |
Last Modified: | 05 Jul 2017 10:36 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176442 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Public Library of Science |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0176442 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:118531 |