title: Repeatability of a telephone questionnaire on cat-ownership patterns and pet-owner demographics evaluation in a community in Texas, USA.
abstract: The repeatability of a telephone questionnaire on cat-ownership patterns, demographics and attitudes towards homeless cats in a community was evaluated. Randomly selected households (n=100) within Caldwell, Texas, were included in the study. The response percentage was 84% (100/119) among those contacted and 75% (100/134) among all eligible respondents. Repeatability was measured by administering the same survey twice to the first 100 responding subjects, with an average (range) of 48 (25-64) days between interviews. The survey was initially administered from 6 June to 28 June 2005 and the follow-up survey was administered from 19 July to 11 August 2005. Repeatability for most cat-ownership characteristics was fair to good between the two interviews (kappa 0.47-0.82). Knowledge of companion animals and subject attachment to pet questions had good correlations between the two interviews (rsp 0.52 and 0.60, respectively). Subject-demographic questions had excellent repeatability (kappa 0.66-1.00).
authors.affiliation: Texas A&M University, College of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, MS 4458, College Station, TX 77843-4458, United States. melanieeramon@yahoo.com
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Ramon
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Slater
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Ward
authors.forename: R R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Lopez
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000827:Animal Welfare; D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic / Q000523:psychology; D001290:Attitude; D002415:Cats / Q000523:psychology*; D003710:Demography; D004285:Dogs / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D001841:Human-Animal Bond; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010067:Ownership / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D013689:Telephone; D013781:Texas