Interviews of case-patients were conducted a median of 12 days (range 3 41) after diarrhea onset; control interviews were conducted a median of 15 days (range 1 41) after diarrhea onset in the matched case.
Interviews could be conducted with 389 (55%) of these patients, and 38 interviews of cases conducted during the pilot phase were added to the final database.
The authors wish to thank Coline Bernard, marie-Hélène De Campo, Sandrine Margaroli and Louise N'Diaye and Sabine Perrier-Bonnet, the research clinical nurses, who conducted the interviews of cases and controls.
Interviews of cases and controls in the main study (tier 1) included questions about child care attendance, residential history, parental occupation, smoking, and other factors.
A questionnaire was sent by e-mail in April 2000 to the National Surveillance Centers in Europe, and interviews of cases were conducted by telephone or in person.
There was also a lag period between the interviews of cases and that of controls, and this could have contributed to recall bias amongst the controls as they were interviewed at a much later period post-delivery.
Vis-a-vis interview of cases and controls by the same trained interviewers, under similar conditions in a hospital setting, minimised information bias.
This study analysed the primary data on Thai IP-related law, regulation, firms' R&D and innovation surveys, patent registration, court litigation, and conducted interviews for case studies of firms, policy makers, and university professors specialised in the automotive industry.
A procedure was set up to expedite case identification, in order to reduce the delay between diagnosis and interview of cases.
Trainees took notes of the clinical interviews for case discussions in the classroom.
Overall, 24.8% of interviews for cases were provided by proxies.
