The objective of the study was to compare information collected through face-to-face interviews at first time and six years later in a city of Southeastern Brazil. In 1998, 32 mothers (N=32) of children aged 20 to 30 months answered a face-to-face interview with structured questions regarding their children’s brushing habits. Six years later this same interview was repeated with the same mothers. Both interviews were compared for overall agreement, kappa and weighted kappa. Overall agreement between both interviews varied from […]

OBJECTIVE: To investigate and analyze the discourse of students living in university residence halls regarding socialization processes and drug consumption. METHODS: This was qualitative research among 20 undergraduate students living in university residence halls in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, in 2003. Residence halls were taken to be socialization spaces for young people that enable the presence of low-income students at university. The interviews covered students’ knowledge of the history of the residence hall, their experience of living in […]

OBJECTIVE: To explore the conceptual dimensions of dengue in the urban context, aiming at creating hypotheses about community attitudes toward prevention campaigns. METHODS: An exploratory cross-sectional study was carried out between March and April 2003 comprising 130 people selected by proposition sampling in three municipalities with different dengue prevalences in Mexico. Semi-structured interviews were applied using free lists, pile sorts and triads. Dengue-related terms and groups of conceptual dimensions were investigated. A consensual analysis was performed by factorizing the major […]

OBJECTIVE: To describe the pathways of formal and informal services utilization in urban low income population presenting depressive, dysthymic and bipolar disorders. METHODS: Information was gathered in face to face interviews using a standardized questionnaire that included sections from the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and one section on service utilization. Interviewees (n=1,486) were selected through stratified socioeconomic variables and a random multistep sample of households of Mexico City. RESULTS: A significant proportion of individuals with affective disorders attended at the […]

OBJECTIVE: To describe methods and initial findings of a surveillance system of risk factors for chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs) based on telephone interviews. METHODS: Interviews undertaken in a random sample of the adult population of the Municipality of São Paulo living in households with telephone. Sampling was done in two steps and included the random selection of households and the random selection of the household member to be interviewed. The system’s questionnaire investigated demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, food consumption and […]

OBJECTIVE: To assess factors associated with drug use among adolescent students from schools providing secondary education. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out in Pelotas, Southern Brazil, in 1998. An anonymous, self-administered questionnaire was answered by a proportional sample of 10-19-year-old students, enrolled in primary (5th grade and further) and secondary classes in all public and private schools of the urban area which providing secondary education. Schools were visited up to three times in order to reach absent students. Results […]

OBJECTIVE: There is an increasingly number of demented elderly in Brazil but empirical data on the resulting impact on their informal caregivers is still poorly documented. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact on informal caregivers of elderly with dementia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted at a psychogeriatric unit in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Structured and semi-structured interviews were administered to 49 elderly patients with dementia and their caregivers. The impact on the caregiver […]

The increase of the elderly populations throughout the world has been investigated by many studies with a view to proving all the information necessary for the determination of policy and planning services. Steps to be taken in the preparation of questionnaires are discussed and common errors to be avoided are indicated. Differences in methodologies between community, mail and telephone surveys are also discussed. The BOAS (Brazil Old Age Schedule), questionnaire, which has been developed to survey the elderly population living […]

The objective of the study was to analyse the referred morbidity of the urban population resident in the city of Botucatu, S. Paulo State, Brazil for the period 1983-1984 was analysed. Data was obtained from a sample population of 7,075 persons (12 per cent of the population) by means of household interviews using two pre-codified questionnaires applied by trained lay interviews under supervision. The recall period of the events was fixed at three weeks. The variables studied were: sex, age, […]

OBJECTIVE: To describe women’s preferred route of delivery and physicians’ viewpoint on that. METHODS: A total of 656 women who gave birth in the National Health System hospitals of the state of São Paulo and Pernambuco and were enrolled in the Latin American Cesarean Section Study (ELAC) were interviewed. Of them, 230 women were selected from three intervention hospitals where patients routinely sought a second opinion when faced with the decision of undergoing a cesarean section, and 426 women were […]