Work in progress
Statements can be used for questions and sequences. Statements are control constructs like sequences, conditions and question components. Constructs are concerned with positioning items within a questionnaire. Statements need to refer back to a question or a sequence to provide them with unique labels. This helps to understand their position within the questionnaire. Statements are labelled with the prefix ‘s_intro_…’. If there is a statement connected to a section then it always needs to be numbered even if there is only one, see second example from ALSPAC below. Statements are different from instructions. There are places where an instruction becomes a statement because there is more than one instruction and only one can be input as an instruction, see example from NSHD below.
The following are examples of statements in questionnaires from different studies:
ALSPAC:
The following example contains a statement 'If no, go to C2 below'. It also contains a condition 'If yes,' - see here for more on conditions.
BCS:
The text highlighted in this example 'HERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT COUGHS AND COLDS' may be mistaken for a sequence however it is actually a statement.
US:
This is again could also be mistaken for a sequence like the example above but it is entered as a statement because it does not satisfy the requirements of a sequence in having an identifiable start AND end. See here for more on sequences.
