title: Use of interactive voice response (IVR) technology in health research with children.
abstract: This article reports on the feasibility of using interactive voice response (IVR) technology to obtain daily reports of attitudes toward alcohol and tobacco use among children 9-13 years of age. Two studies were conducted. The first was an investigation of the use of IVR technology to obtain daily data from a sample of primary school children over a period of 8 weeks. The second was an extension of the research to a large sample of primary and secondary school children in urban and rural areas who provided daily data over a 4-week period. Retention and compliance rates comparable to those obtained with adults were evident in both studies, supporting the feasibility of this technology with children. The results are discussed in relation to the benefits of this methodology for health research, particularly for studies of sensitive topics conducted with children and adolescents.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia. werner@psy.uwa.edu.au
authors.forename: Werner G K
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Stritzke
authors.forename: Justine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dandy
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Durkin
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Houghton
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000523:psychology*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001315:Australia; D002648:Child; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003625:Data Collection / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008122:Local Area Networks / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008432:Mathematical Computing; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012907:Smoking / Q000523:psychology*; D012984:Software