Abstract

BackgroundMissing data may bias the results of clinical trials and other studies. This study describes the response rate, questionnaire responses and financial costs associated with offering participants from a multilingual population the option to complete questionnaires over the telephone.MethodsDesign: Before and after study of two methods of questionnaire completion. Participants and Setting: Seven hundred and sixty five pregnant women from 25 general practices in two UK inner city Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) taking part in a cluster randomised controlled trial of offering antenatal sickle cell and thalassaemia screening in primary care. Two hundred and four participants did not speak English. Sixty one women were offered postal questionnaire completion only and 714 women were offered a choice of telephone or postal questionnaire completion.Outcome measures: (i) Proportion of completed questionnaires, (ii) attitude and knowledge responses obtained from a questionnaire assessing informed choice.ResultsThe response rate from women offered postal completion was 26% compared with 67% for women offered a choice of telephone or postal completion (41% difference 95% CI Diff 30 to 52). For non-English speakers offered a choice of completion methods the response rate was 56% compared with 71% for English speakers (95% CI Diff 7 to 23). No difference was found for knowledge by completion method, but telephone completion was associated with more positive attitude classifications than postal completion (87 vs 96%, 95% CI diff 0.006 to 15). Compared with postal administration the additional costs associated with telephone administration were £3.90 per questionnaire for English speakers and £71.60 per questionnaire for non English speakers.ConclusionStudies requiring data to be collected by questionnaire may obtain higher response rates from both English and non-English speakers when a choice of telephone or postal administration (and where necessary, an interpreter)is offered compared to offering postal administration only. This approach will, however, incur additional research costs and uncertainty remains about the equivalence of responses obtained from the two methods.

Highlights

  • Missing data may bias the results of clinical trials and other studies

  • No difference was found for knowledge by completion method, but telephone completion was associated with more positive attitude classifications than postal completion (87 vs 96%, 95% CI diff 0.006 to 15)

  • Studies requiring data to be collected by questionnaire may obtain higher response rates from both English and non-English speakers when a choice of telephone or postal administrationis offered compared to offering postal administration only

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Summary

Introduction

Missing data may bias the results of clinical trials and other studies. This study describes the response rate, questionnaire responses and financial costs associated with offering participants from a multilingual population the option to complete questionnaires over the telephone. Missing data may bias the results of clinical trials and other studies, with low response rates compromising the validity of the findings [1,2]. Self administered questionnaires sent and returned by post offer a cost effective way to obtain data from a large number of participants, but often has low response rates. A recent systematic review of methods to increase response rates to questionnaires identified a number of strategies such as shortening questionnaires, repeat mailing of questionnaires and telephone reminders [4]. For example a recent descriptive study reported that an unconditional payment of £5 increased the response rate from 78 to 88% [6]

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