A postal questionnaire was developed by a multi-disciplinary
team of health protection practitioners and clinicians from
local acute services and HPUs, drawing on existing guidance
and experience of recent outbreaks of diarrhoea. The questionnaire
addressed four broad areas: management of diarrhoea,
treatment of diarrhoea, general infection control and
frequency of outbreaks of diarrhoea in the home. The questionnaire
was titled ‘Management of residents with diarrhoea’
as the researchers did not want to influence the
responses by focussing explicitly on C. difficile (which was
high profile in the media)