Does Modality of Survey Administration Impact Data Quality: Audio Computer Assisted Self Interview (ACASI) Versus Self-Administered Pen and Paper?

William M Reichmann, Elena Losina, George R Seage, Christian Arbelaez, Steven A Safren, Jeffrey N Katz, Adam Hetland and Rochelle P Walensky

PLOS ONE, 2010, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Background: In the context of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on HIV testing in the emergency department (ED) setting, we evaluated preferences for survey modality and data quality arising from each modality. Methods: Enrolled participants were offered the choice of answering a survey via audio computer assisted self-interview (ACASI) or pen and paper self-administered questionnaire (SAQ). We evaluated factors influencing choice of survey modality. We defined unusable data for a particular survey domain as answering fewer than 75% of the questions in the domain. We then compared ACASI and SAQ with respect to unusable data for domains that address sensitive topics. Results: Of 758 enrolled ED patients, 218 (29%) chose ACASI, 343 chose SAQ (45%) and 197 (26%) opted not to complete either. Results of the log-binomial regression indicated that older (RR = 1.08 per decade) and less educated participants (RR = 1.25) were more likely to choose SAQ over ACASI. ACASI yielded substantially less unusable data than SAQ. Conclusions: In the ED setting there may be a tradeoff between increased participation with SAQ versus better data quality with ACASI. Future studies of novel approaches to maximize the use of ACASI in the ED setting are needed.

Date: 2010
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0008728 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 08728&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0008728

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008728

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone (plosone@plos.org).