Data in the Main Study
The face-to-face questionnaire consisted of 36 sections. It was necessary to split the interview into sections to allow for the interim storage of data and to facilitate proper routing through the interview. In this way it was possible to interrupt the interview and to skip certain sections of the interview on the basis of the data gathered within previous sections or of the choices made by the management. Most questions asked in the questionnaire can be subsumed under one of the following topics:
Basic demographics. Four sections of the questionnaire gathered basic demographic data of the respondent and of his/her partner/spouse, if present. Among these were education, employment status, religious affiliation, marital and partner status, characteristics of the current household and housing characteristics.
Family background. Questions were asked about the parents and the parental home.
Family composition. In three sections, questions were asked about the number of siblings, children and grandchildren. The first name of these family members was asked and used to determine characteristics of these family members (e.g. age) and of the relationship with them (e.g. frequency of contact).
Health. Subjective health, handicaps and capacities to perform activities of daily living were investigated for the respondent and for the partner/spouse.
Social participation and personal network. Participation in educational courses, memberships of and activities in organizations, volunteer work and other aspects of social participation. Furthermore, the respondent was asked to nominate his or her network members; they were to be nominated by first name and first letter of the last name only. Characteristics of the network members (e.g. age and employment status) and characteristics of the relationships (e.g. frequency of contact and supportive exchanges) were collected.
Life history. Questions were asked about previous cohabitations of the older adults with their children and the marriages and consensual unions of the children. Previous relationships with a partner/spouse were investigated. Data on the history of household composition, of employment and of moves were collected.
Well-being, skills and attitudes. Items on loneliness, well-being, exchange orientation, social skills, self-evaluation, need for affiliation and attitudes toward help by family.
Evaluation of the interview. The interview was closed by asking how the respondent had experienced the interview. After the interview, when the interviewer was at his home, the interviewer reported about the manner in which the interview had progressed and about the performance of the respondent.
The following table presents a survey of the data files, with the file name in the first column, the source of the data in the second column, a short description of the contents in the third column, the identification variable in the fourth column, the number of cases in the fifth column, and the questionnaire that the data are from in the sixth column.
The data are from the following sources: the respondent in the face-to-face interview (R), the proxy of the person in the sample (P), the interviewer (I), the municipality (M) and the system (S), such as the computer system, administrative data or computations on original data.
The most important identifier of the cases in the files is the variable RESPNR, which consists of five figures, the first two of which are referring to the number of the municipality from the variable APLACE in the files LSNa002 and LSNa008 (it was necessary to use more than one place identifier for the cases in several municipalities; e.g. respondent numbers starting with 11 through 14 are citizens of Amsterdam, with a value of 10 on variable APLACE). The last three figures of the variable RESPNR are sequence numbers without any meaning (respondents were randomly selected from the stock). Other identifiers are ADEMID for all the persons who are referred to by the respondent in the demographic section of the interview (the first five figures are the respondent number, followed by a unique random serial number), ANWMEM for the network members (the first five figures are the respondent number, followed by a unique number in the sequence in which the network members were referred to), ANWPAIR for pairs of network members (the first five figures are the respondent number, followed by a unique number given twice in the sequence in which the network members were referred to) and AITERNR for the number of the interviewer.
The following four questionnaires were used: a computer-programmed questionnaire for the face-to-face interview, answered by the respondent or by the interviewer (F), a written questionnaire, answered by the respondent before the face to face interview (W), a written questionnaire, answered by the interviewer at the time of the training (I), and a questionnaire for the phone interview, answered by the proxy of the person in the sample (P).
| File | Source | Data about | ID variable | N
|
Quest. |
| LSNa001 | S | availability of data (partial non-response) | respnr | 4,494
|
|
| LSNa002 | S,M | realization of sample (response and non-response), sex, date of birth, marital status, postal-code | respnr | 13,438
|
|
| LSNa003 | S,I | sex, age, education, experience, subjective data of the interviewer | aiternr | 88
|
I |
| LSNa203 | S | scales subjective characteristics of the interviewer | aiternr | 85
|
|
| LSNa004 | I | phone number known when contacted | respnr | 7,395
|
F |
| LSNa005 | I | type of residence | respnr | 7,496
|
F |
| LSNa006 | I | discussion about refusal | respnr* | 2,548
|
F |
| LSNa007 | I | discussion about cooperation | respnr* | 4,763
|
F |
| LSNa008 | S,I,M | sex, date of birth, age, date and duration of interview, municipality, financial status | respnr | 4,494
|
F |
| LSNa009 | S | weights (for generalization to population) | respnr | 4,146
|
|
| LSNa010 | R | basic demographics (incl. marital and partner status) | respnr | 4,494
|
F |
| LSNa011 | R | basic demographics partner | respnr | 2,759
|
F |
| LSNa012 | R | characteristics occupation respondent and partner | respnr | 4,494
|
F |
| LSNa013 | I | choice short version interview | respnr | 4,491
|
F |
| LSNa014 | R | mental state | respnr | 183
|
F |
| LSNa015 | R | characteristics household members | ademid | 178
|
F |
| LSNa215 | R | living arrangement | respnr | 4,488
|
F |
| LSNa016 | R | characteristics residency | respnr | 4,445
|
F |
| LSNa216 | S | feel safe in neighborhood | respnr | 4,083
|
|
| LSNa017 | R | characteristics residency institutionalized | respnr | 249
|
F |
| LSNa018 | R | characteristics residency independently living | respnr | 3,894
|
F |
| LSNa019 | R | education and religion parents | respnr | 4,142
|
F |
| LSNa020 | R | parental background | respnr | 4,142
|
F |
| LSNa021 | R | characteristics siblings | ademid | 11,486
|
F |
| LSNa221 | R,S | # siblings | respnr | 4,139
|
F |
| LSNa022 | R | characteristics children | ademid | 12,501
|
F |
| LSNa222 | R,S | # children | respnr | 4,482
|
F |
| LSNa023 | R | characteristics grandchildren | ademid | 6,237
|
F |
| LSNa223 | R | # (great) grandchildren | respnr | 4,137
|
|
| LSNa030 | R | subjective health, visus, hearing, ADL, IADL | respnr | 4,477
|
F |
| LSNa230 | S | scales visus, ADL, IADL | respnr | 4,477
|
|
| LSNa031 | R | ADL of partner | respnr | 2,495
|
F |
| LSNa231 | S | scale ADL of partner | respnr | 2,492
|
|
| LSNa032 | R | social participation | respnr | 4,125
|
F |
| LSNa232 | S | scale scores social participation | respnr | 4,125
|
|
| LSNa047 | R | the personal network: sex network member, type relationship and frequency contact, match network members and family members, network member and relationship characteristics, support exchanged | anwmem ademid |
54,501
|
F |
| LSNa247 | R | the personal network: network size, sum of support within relationships other than with partner/spouse | respnr | 4,059
|
|
| LSNa055 | R | cooperation network-study | respnr | 1,547
|
F |
| LSNa056 | R | contact between network members | anwpair | 32,238
|
F |
| LSNa256 | S | density contact | respnr | 699
|
|
| LSNa063 | R | partner history | respnr* | 4,343
|
F |
| LSNa263 | S | # marriages/cohabitations, partner history | respnr | 4,084
|
|
| LSNa065 | R | household history | respnr* ademid | 27,499
|
F |
| LSNa265 | R | quality household history data | respnr | 4,092
|
|
| LSNa067 | R | employment history | respnr* | 2,877
|
F |
| LSNa267 | R,S | employment history, income | respnr | 4,082
|
|
| LSNa069 | R | residential history | respnr* | 1,688
|
F |
| LSNa269 | R | residential history | respnr | 831
|
F |
| LSNa070 | R,S | places of residence | respnr* | 21,083
|
F |
| LSNa073 | R | loneliness items | respnr | 4,063
|
F |
| LSNa273 | S | loneliness scale | respnr | 4,045
|
|
| LSNa074 | R | well-being items | respnr | 4,383
|
F |
| LSNa274 | S | well-being scale | respnr | 4,350
|
|
| LSNa075 | R | items exchange and communal orientation | respnr | 3,135
|
F |
| LSNa275 | S | scale exchange orientation | respnr | 3,105
|
|
| LSNa076 | R | social skills items | respnr | 698
|
F |
| LSNa276 | S | social skills scale | respnr | 678
|
|
| LSNa077 | R | self-evaluation items | respnr | 3,853
|
F/W |
| LSNa277 | S | self-evaluation scale | respnr | 3,779
|
|
| LSNa078 | R | need for affiliation items | respnr | 1,568
|
F |
| LSNa278 | S | need for affiliation scale | respnr | 1,559
|
|
| LSNa079 | R | attitudes family help items | respnr | 2,566
|
F |
| LSNa279 | S | attitudes family help scale | respnr | 2,482
|
|
| LSNa080 | R | evaluation interview by the respondent | respnr | 4,396
|
F |
| LSNa081 | I | behavior and characteristics of the respondent | respnr | 4,488
|
F |
| LSNa091 | P | basic demographics | respnr | 225
|
P |
| LSNa089 | S | neighborhood characteristics | respnr | 4,494
|
|
| LSNa092 | R | loneliness (UCLA) | respnr | 655
|
W |
| LSNa292 | S | scale loneliness (UCLA) | respnr | 604
|
|
| LSNa093 | S | date, start and duration of parts of interview | respnr* | 141,626
|
F |
| LSNa094 | S | evaluation quality interviewer by supervisors | aiternr* | 405
|
|
| LSNa095 | S | geographic and financial data based on postal code | respnr | 13,438
|
|
| LSNa097 | S | duration of questions and items | respnr* | 338,133
|
|
| LSNa098 | S | population municipalities and sample (proportion) | aplace* | 77
|
Updated: 12-03-2003