Hi all,
Is there a nice way in Epidata to deal with long text fields of 300 positions? I'm working with a questionnaire with open-end questions. The answers are not longer than about 300 characters. The qes files now has four text fields, each covering 80 positions which is the maximum. Though this works, it is e.g. not easy to make corrections in the text, since the four fields are handled separately by Epidata; inserting a word that I forgot to enter in the first field implies that all remaining fields have to be adjusted as well, since the text does not scroll over all five fields at the same time. Also, instead of showing 80 positions, only 64 are visible at a time, in each field. Does anyone have an idea or tip what I could do, staying with Epidata that is. (Of course, I could also type the text in notepad or whatever, but it's much nicer to keep all data together.) Thanks for any advice, Ben.
Two possibilities come to mind, both compromises at this time. 1) Leave some space at the end of each field as you type to allow you to insert characters. Of course, this will have its limits. 2) Capture the text using the data notes capability. Just hit <F5> when in a field and EpiData opens the Notes screen. You can type all you want in here. EpiData puts in the record number, field name and current field contents, so you may want to add to a BEFORE ENTRY block for this field:
BEFORE ENTRY WRITENOTE "Notes for patient @patidnum, visit number @visitnum" END
This a very powerful feature of EpiData that is missing from most other software. You don't have any means of manipulating the data, but they are captured and can be reviewed and edited in any text/word processor.
Jamie
epidata-list@lists.umanitoba.ca wrote:
Hi all,
Is there a nice way in Epidata to deal with long text fields of 300 positions? I'm working with a questionnaire with open-end questions. The answers are not longer than about 300 characters. The qes files now has four text fields, each covering 80 positions which is the maximum. Though this works, it is e.g. not easy to make corrections in the text, since the four fields are handled separately by Epidata; inserting a word that I forgot to enter in the first field implies that all remaining fields have to be adjusted as well, since the text does not scroll over all five fields at the same time. Also, instead of showing 80 positions, only 64 are visible at a time, in each field. Does anyone have an idea or tip what I could do, staying with Epidata that is. (Of course, I could also type the text in notepad or whatever, but it's much nicer to keep all data together.) Thanks for any advice, Ben.
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