Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
BMC Public Health. 2012 Jul 31;12:579. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-12-579.
Many epidemiological and public health surveys report increasing difficulty obtaining high participation rates. We conducted a pilot follow-up study to determine whether a mailed or telephone survey would better facilitate data collection in a subset of respondents to an earlier telephone survey conducted as part of the National Birth Defects Prevention Study.
We randomly assigned 392 eligible mothers to receive a self-administered, mailed questionnaire (MQ) or a computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) using similar recruitment protocols. If mothers gave permission to contact the fathers, fathers were recruited to complete the same instrument (MQ or CATI) as mothers.
Mothers contacted for the MQ, within all demographic strata examined, were more likely to participate than those contacted for the CATI (86.6% vs. 70.6%). The median response time for mothers completing the MQ was 17 days, compared to 29 days for mothers completing the CATI. Mothers completing the MQ also required fewer reminder calls or letters to finish participation versus those assigned to the CATI (median 3 versus 6), though they were less likely to give permission to contact the father (75.0% vs. 85.8%). Fathers contacted for the MQ, however, had higher participation compared to fathers contacted for the CATI (85.2% vs. 54.5%). Fathers recruited to the MQ also had a shorter response time (median 17 days) and required fewer reminder calls and letters (median 3 reminders) than those completing the CATI (medians 28 days and 6 reminders).
We concluded that offering a MQ substantially improved participation rates and reduced recruitment effort compared to a CATI in this study. While a CATI has the advantage of being able to clarify answers to complex questions or eligibility requirements, our experience suggests that a MQ might be a good survey option for some studies.
许多流行病学和公共卫生调查报告称，越来越难以获得高参与率。我们进行了一项试点随访研究，以确定在作为国家出生缺陷预防研究一部分的早期电话调查的一部分受访者中，邮寄或电话调查是否更有利于数据收集。
我们随机分配了 392 名符合条件的母亲，让她们接受自我管理的邮寄问卷 (MQ) 或使用类似招募协议的计算机辅助电话访谈 (CATI)。如果母亲允许联系父亲，父亲将被招募来完成与母亲相同的工具 (MQ 或 CATI)。
在所有检查的人口统计学阶层中，联系 MQ 的母亲比联系 CATI 的母亲更有可能参与 (86.6%对 70.6%)。完成 MQ 的母亲的中位回复时间为 17 天，而完成 CATI 的母亲为 29 天。与分配给 CATI 的母亲相比，完成 MQ 的母亲完成参与所需的提醒电话或信件更少 (中位数 3 次对 6 次)，但她们更不愿意允许联系父亲 (75.0%对 85.8%)。然而，与联系 CATI 的父亲相比，联系 MQ 的父亲的参与率更高 (85.2%对 54.5%)。招募到 MQ 的父亲的回复时间也更短 (中位数 17 天)，并且需要的提醒电话和信件也更少 (中位数 3 次提醒)，而不是完成 CATI 的父亲 (中位数 28 天和 6 次提醒)。
我们得出的结论是，与 CATI 相比，在这项研究中，提供 MQ 可以大大提高参与率并减少招募工作。虽然 CATI 具有能够澄清复杂问题或资格要求答案的优势，但我们的经验表明，MQ 可能是某些研究的良好调查选择。
