If we encountered difficulties ascertaining whether an ulcer was acquired in the ICU or already present at admission, we assumed that the ulcer was ICU-acquired to avoid risk of underestimation.
Difficulties ascertaining patient histories also spanned both child and adult data.
Key themes included: social and legal instability, difficulties ascertaining history, lack of engagement, availability of services, and inter-agency working.
Key challenges faced by staff included social and legal instability, difficulties ascertaining history, patients' lack of engagement, availability of services, and inter-agency working.
Because of the difficulties ascertaining whether or not a farm had been visited for horse treatments, and horses being outside the focus of the study, all records of horse treatments were excluded.
In the original study, we excluded individuals reporting irritable bowel syndrome (cases = 221, 9.3%; controls = 324, 6.2%), because of difficulties ascertaining date of onset and because risk factors in this group may differ.
Challenges encountered included the inability to directly contact potential participants, difficulties ascertaining eligibility, mailing strategy complications and the overall effect of these issues on response rate and subsequent sample size.
However, radiography is severely limited by its inability to visualize cartilage, the difficulty of ascertaining the optimum and reproducible positioning of the joint in serial assessments, and the difficulty of grading joint space narrowing visually.
Radiography is severely limited by its inability to directly visualize cartilage, the difficulty of ascertaining the optimum and reproducible positioning of the joint in serial assessments, and the difficulty of grading JSN by visual evaluation.
