Assessment of Patient Reported Health Status Questions Via Four Different Methods of Administration, in Stroke Survivors.

A Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) is a questionnaire that asks patients for their views on their own health or the impact of healthcare they have received on their health and quality of life (RCN, 2011). The benefit of PROMS is that they gather information from the patient's perspective, which offers great potential to improve the quality and outcomes of health services (Department of Health 2011).

There is a PROM (the PROMIS-10 Global Health) and a number of extra questions that are recommended for use in people who have had a stroke by the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement, but the best way of delivering these questions for stroke survivors is unknown.

At present, the NHS in England, Scotland and Wales are required to offer every stroke survivors a 6 month post stroke follow-up appointment. Currently, the information collected at the 6 month review is not from the patient's perspective and the best method of collecting this information has not been established. The Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) which is led by the Royal College of Physicians in London promote the 6 month follow-up assessment. SSNAP recognise that currently 4 different methods of 6 month follow-up appointment occur. The current methods in use are face-to-face assessment, telephone interview, online questionnaire or postal questionnaire.

The aim of this research is to understand if there is a difference between these 4 methods of delivering these questions in people who have had a stroke.

As part of the 6 month review this research study will assess the response rate for 15 Patient Reported Health Status questions across the 4 recognised methods of delivery;

* Face-to-Face * Telephone * Online * Post

To conduct this research study a sample of 808 stroke survivors will be asked to take part in the research. From these 808 people, 202 participants will be randomly assigned to each method of administration (Face-to-Face Interview, Telephone Interview, Postal Questionnaire and Online Questionnaire).

The questionnaires received by the research team will not record any personally identifiable information. The data will then be utilised by the researchers for statistical analysis in order to identify, which method of the 4 methods of administration, under investigation, is the most acceptable for stroke survivors. The conclusions of this research will inform the roll-out of the most appropriate method of delivering the 6 month stroke follow-up review for stroke survivors.