Surveys and questionnaires: Design, measures, and classic example
Surveys and questionnaires are research tools that have been around for years and have become standard methods to obtain information in academics and industry. However, these instruments are inherently subjective due to the inability to challenge the responses, and researchers long viewed them as inferior to objective data, such as laboratory values or other “hard” data. Over the last half-century, the medical field has dramatically increased the use of these instruments to collect more in-depth data from the patient's perspective, which can be used alone or in combination with the objective data collected. The increase in surveys and questionnaires can be attributed to the rise of funding for health outcomes research and patient-reported outcomes (PROs). Increased funding has garnered more attention to develop tools that assist in the production and execution of outcomes research with the development of PRO databases and instruments. These advances allow questionnaires to be more efficient and reliable, with improved validation processes. The main tenants of plastic-and-reconstructive surgery are to restore “form and function,” which is subjective to the individual patient; therefore, these instruments' applicability for plastic surgery is vast. This chapter will explain the basic steps for designing, implementing, and analyzing surveys and questionnaries with current examples used in plastic surgery.
