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Randomised controlled trial of paper, online and SMS diaries for collecting sexual behaviour information from young people
  1. Megan S C Lim1,2,
  2. Rachel Sacks-Davis1,
  3. Campbell K Aitken1,
  4. Jane S Hocking1,3,
  5. Margaret E Hellard1,2
  1. 1Centre for Population Health, Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia
  2. 2Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
  3. 3Key Centre for Women's Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Megan Lim, GPO Box 2284, Melbourne 3001, Victoria, Australia; lim{at}burnet.edu.au

Abstract

Background Diaries are used in sexual behaviour research to reduce recall bias. Diary collection via mobile phone text messaging (SMS) has not been trialled previously in sexual behaviour research. This randomised controlled trial compared SMS, paper and online diaries on response rate, timeliness, completeness of data and acceptability. The correlation between behaviour reported in all three types of diaries and data collected in a retrospective questionnaire was also determined.

Methods Participants were recruited by telephone and randomised into one of three groups. They completed weekly sexual behaviour diaries for 3 months by SMS, online or paper (by post). An online survey was conducted at the end of 3 months to compare retrospective reports to the diaries and assess opinions on the diary collection method.

Results 72 participants were enrolled in the study, 24 in each group. Online diaries were more likely to be submitted late than SMS diaries (p<0.001). 3.9% of SMS diaries, 3.1% of paper diaries and 0.5% of online diaries were incomplete (p=0.001). Online data collection was the preferred mode for 51%. 65 participants completed the end point retrospective questionnaire. The correlation between the diary and questionnaire on sexual risk classification was substantial (κ=0.74) regardless of diary mode.

Conclusions SMS is a convenient and timely method of collecting brief behavioural data, but online data collection was preferable to most participants and more likely to be complete. Data collected in retrospective sexual behaviour questionnaires were found to agree substantially with data collected through weekly self-reported diaries.

  • Sexual behaviour
  • validity of results
  • cellular phone
  • data collection
  • internet
  • diaries
  • survival me

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Footnotes

  • Funding Burnet Institute.

  • Competing interests None.

  • Patient consent Obtained.

  • Ethics approval Ethics approval for the study was obtained from the Victorian Department of Human Services and the trial was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (No. 00082347).

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.