An Evaluation of the Deinstitutionalization Process in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

This appendix provides further detail on the sample and field survey methods used in the Discharge Record Review and the Client Follow-up Study. The sample of clients was cross sectional in design but the study used four information sources (medical records, client interviews, residential staff interviews and interviews with service providers), each of which provided information on the client at a different point of time. The medical records data combined with information from the other instruments facilitated an approximation of what would have been achieved had data been collected in a panel study over succeeding waves of interviewing. In these ways the cross sectional design approximates a longitudinal design.