Statistics skewed by ER directive?
On Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 9:26:06 AM UTC+1, James wrote:
An anecdote I was told the other day is very troubling.
A cyclist crashed & was taken to hospital. A nurse made notes. The
cyclist asked why the box was ticked that he'd been wearing a helmet.
The nurse replied they'd been instructed to assume a helmet was worn and
had been smashed if a cyclist presented without a helmet and had no head
injury.
Has this been observed in countries other than Australia?
--
JS
This is why it is so important for the guy setting up the hypothesis and the questionnaire to go out in the field and work with the form-fillers, to see what they actually do. You'd be amazed at what simple instructions can be misinterpreted by people from a different background, a different social class (demographers cannot afford to be politically correct, because political correctness skews the result, every time), and a different education. Too many of the folk making up the questionnaires think that's the end of the job until they collate the numbers.
AJ
Straight as a die
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