Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by HARLOW, B. L.
Right arrow Articles by ZIEGLER, R. G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by HARLOW, B. L.
Right arrow Articles by ZIEGLER, R. G.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 122, No. 2: 335-340
Copyright © 1985 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health

research-article

A COMPARISON OF COMPUTER-ASSISTED AND HARD COPY TELEPHONE INTERVIEWING

BERNARD L. HARLOW1, JEANNE F. ROSENTHAL1 and REGINA G. ZIEGLER2

1Westat, Inc. 1650 Research Blvd., Rockville, MD 20850
2Environmental Epidemiology Branch, National Cancer Institute, NIH Bethesda, MD

Reprint requests to Jeanne F. Rosenthal

In computer-assisted telephone interviewing, questions are displayed on a computer screen, and responses are entered directly into a computerized data file. In 1981–1982, a randomized trial of computer-assisted telephone interviewing, compared with telephone interviewing with responses directly recorded on printed questionnaires, was carried out The respondents were surrogates for 400 white Florida residents who died in 1979 and were randomly selected from a death certificate-based case-control study of cotorectal cancer. Outcomes examined included participation rate after initial phone contact, length of interview, recorded number of comments, recorded number of probes, unresolved "don't know" responses, and the interviewer's evaluation of the quality of the interview. The computer-assisted telephone interviewing system resulted in the 25–30-minute interviews lasting, on the average, 3.4 minutes (14%) longer. The average number of comments decreased from 5.5 to 4.1 (a 25% difference) and probes from 10.2 to 8.3 (a 19% difference) in the computer-assisted interviews. These differences were markedly smaller than the differences noted between individual interviewers.

information processing; computer questionnaires; interviews


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Arch Intern MedHome page
S. A. Hurst, S. C. Hull, G. DuVal, and M. Danis
Physicians' Responses to Resource Constraints
Arch Intern Med, March 28, 2005; 165(6): 639 - 644.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 J. Med. EthicsHome page
S A Hurst, S C Hull, G DuVal, and M Danis
How physicians face ethical difficulties: a qualitative analysis
J. Med. Ethics, January 1, 2005; 31(1): 7 - 14.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 JAMAHome page
E. A. Balas, F. Jaffrey, G. J. Kuperman, S. A. Boren, G. D. Brown, F. Pinciroli, and J. A. Mitchell
Electronic Communication With Patients: Evaluation of Distance Medicine Technology
JAMA, July 9, 1997; 278(2): 152 - 159.
[Abstract] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.