title: Can feedback be individualised, useful, and economical?
abstract: An important, but often neglected, part of any research or audit exercise is the reporting back to participants of the results of that exercise. When feedback is made, it is often of a general, aggregated nature. Considerations of cost and psychological factors usually preclude feedback to individuals. As part of a larger study we have developed a prototype mechanism for providing such individual feedback. This was done by writing a computer program which automatically generated the report, using rules on how to interpret different patterns of responses to a questionnaire. Previous qualitative evaluation had shown a positive response from participating nurses. The current small-scale study reports a more formal evaluation. Participants who received reports on the degree to which their ward was practising primary nursing overwhelmingly found the reports readable, informative, encouraging, accurate and useful.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Glamorgan, UK.
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Mead
authors.forename: L G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Moseley
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Cook
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D003697:Delphi Technique; D006801:Humans; D007255:Information Services; D009731:Nursing Audit; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D011321:Primary Nursing / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires