title: Instrument development, data collection, and characteristics of practices, staff, and measures in the Improving Quality of Care in Diabetes (iQuaD) Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Type 2 diabetes is an increasingly prevalent chronic illness and an important cause of avoidable mortality. Patients are managed by the integrated activities of clinical and non-clinical members of primary care teams. This study aimed to: investigate theoretically-based organisational, team, and individual factors determining the multiple behaviours needed to manage diabetes; and identify multilevel determinants of different diabetes management behaviours and potential interventions to improve them. This paper describes the instrument development, study recruitment, characteristics of the study participating practices and their constituent healthcare professionals and administrative staff and reports descriptive analyses of the data collected.
  
  
  METHODS
  The study was a predictive study over a 12-month period. Practices (N = 99) were recruited from within the UK Medical Research Council General Practice Research Framework. We identified six behaviours chosen to cover a range of clinical activities (prescribing, non-prescribing), reflect decisions that were not necessarily straightforward (controlling blood pressure that was above target despite other drug treatment), and reflect recommended best practice as described by national guidelines. Practice attributes and a wide range of individually reported measures were assessed at baseline; measures of clinical outcome were collected over the ensuing 12 months, and a number of proxy measures of behaviour were collected at baseline and at 12 months. Data were collected by telephone interview, postal questionnaire (organisational and clinical) to practice staff, postal questionnaire to patients, and by computer data extraction query.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All 99 practices completed a telephone interview and responded to baseline questionnaires. The organisational questionnaire was completed by 931/1236 (75.3%) administrative staff, 423/529 (80.0%) primary care doctors, and 255/314 (81.2%) nurses. Clinical questionnaires were completed by 326/361 (90.3%) primary care doctors and 163/186 (87.6%) nurses. At a practice level, we achieved response rates of 100% from clinicians in 40 practices and > 80% from clinicians in 67 practices. All measures had satisfactory internal consistency (alpha coefficient range from 0.61 to 0.97; Pearson correlation coefficient (two item measures) 0.32 to 0.81); scores were generally consistent with good practice. Measures of behaviour showed relatively high rates of performance of the six behaviours, but with considerable variability within and across the behaviours and measures.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We have assembled an unparalleled data set from clinicians reporting on their cognitions in relation to the performance of six clinical behaviours involved in the management of people with one chronic disease (diabetes mellitus), using a range of organisational and individual level measures as well as information on the structure of the practice teams and across a large number of UK primary care practices. We would welcome approaches from other researchers to collaborate on the analysis of this data.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, Baddiley-Clark Building, Richardson Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4AX, UK. martin.eccles@ncl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Martin P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Eccles
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hrisos
authors.forename: Jill J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Francis
authors.forename: Elaine
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Stamp
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hawthorne
authors.forename: Nick
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Steen
authors.forename: Jeremy M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Grimshaw
authors.forename: Marko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Elovainio
authors.forename: Justin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Presseau
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hunter
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods*; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000517:prevention & control*; D019468:Disease Management; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D017146:Models, Organizational; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D010348:Patient Care Team / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011320:Primary Health Care; D058996:Quality Improvement; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom