Dataset details: CRDA/32/DS/2

This dataset was transferred from the UK Data Archive at the University of Essex on a CD-ROM which was received by NDAD on 29 Feb 2000.

This part of the survey covers the respondents' consultations with doctors. It asks about the number of consultations with different doctors, whether each respondent's first consultation was with her local GP, and if not, her reasons for consulting another doctor in the first instance. The survey also asked about the number of weeks' gestation at which the respondent first consulted a doctor, and the length of time between the first and most recent consultations. Questions were asked about discussions with the doctor about not continuing with the pregnancy, and the doctor's comments on the possibility of obtaining an abortion. Details were also obtained about referrals to other doctors, the respondent's opinion of the treatment given by her doctor, the length of journey to the surgery, the type of practice, the sex of the doctor, and whether consultations were with NHS or private doctors.

The dataset was transferred to NDAD as a fixed length text file. Each record was contained in two lines of 80 characters. In the second line of each record only the first 56 characters contained data. The structure of the converted data file was changed so that each record was contained in one line. Also the trailing 24 blank characters at the end of each record were deleted, so that each record in the converted file is 136 characters long. The data conversion was done in UNIX using the 'paste' and 'cut' commands.

The data is contained in one table. It is possible to link this table with the other data tables in this series (CRDA/32/DS/1/1 - Main Patient Survey, and CRDA/32/DS/3/1 - Other Professional Consultations). The tables link via the key field "Case Number". No information on the relationships between the tables was provided in the documentation, and therefore it was necessary for NDAD to infer the nature of the relationships by examination of the data.

The dataset comprises the following table(s):

No discrepancies were found in the data.

In the transformed data file the number of records was compared to the expected number of records. Also the length of all records was compared to the expected length. Then the values in the transformed data were compared to the expected values as described in the Code book, Doctor Consultations (see the Dataset Documentation Catalogue, reference CRDA/32/DD/6/2). All of these checks verified that there were no discrepancies between the original data and the transformed data.