Writing a research protocol and designing a questionnaire are not as easy as might be thought. Producing the 'ideal' questionnaire can be fraught with difficulties, and the guidelines provided are intended to avoid potential pitfalls. Designing a questionnaire takes time and patience. The importance of a pre-test and pilot study cannot be overemphasized and resultant modifications to the questions will increase the validity, reliability and responsiveness of a questionnaire and lend support to any findings following appropriate statistical interpretation of the data. The advantages of the questionnaire research method, together with the disadvantages and the problems associated with poor response rates, are discussed.