Work in progress
Text within a questionnaire becomes a statement when it does not fulfill the criteria of becoming any of the other elements and does not provide any context to be part of the question literal. Statements can be found throughout the questionnaire; at the beginning, middle and end.
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 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.
ALSPAC:
This is an example of a question which consists of the question literal text as well as a statement. However, the text is continuous it therefore is not as clear as to which parts of the text classify as the statement. Upon further analysis if becomes more evident that the second part of the statement becomes a statement and the first paragraph becomes the question literal.
Note also that when constructing the id label for this statement, it's reference is the sequence 'Section B:...' and therefore the label should be entered as the following 's_SectionB_i'. It has also been numbered as all statements that are referenced back to a sequence need to be numbered even if there is only one statement.
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. This is because it does not satisfy the requirements of a sequence in having an clear start and end. See here for more on sequences.
US:
This could also be mistaken for a sequence like the example above but it is entered as a statement.
NSHD
This example contains instructions for the questionnaire however the text is still entered as multiple statements.
NSHD
This example is of a question with more than one apparent instruction.
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 above.