title: Text messaging data collection for monitoring an infant feeding intervention program in rural China: feasibility study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  An effective data collection method is crucial for high quality monitoring of health interventions. The traditional face-to-face data collection method is labor intensive, expensive, and time consuming. With the rapid increase of mobile phone subscribers, text messaging has the potential to be used for evaluation of population health interventions in rural China.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this study was to explore the feasibility of using text messaging as a data collection tool to monitor an infant feeding intervention program.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were caregivers of children aged 0 to 23 months in rural China who participated in an infant feeding health education program. We used the test-retest method. First, we collected data with a text messaging survey and then with a face-to-face survey for 2 periods of 3 days. We compared the response rate, data agreement, costs, and participants' acceptability of the two methods. Also, we interviewed participants to explore their reasons for not responding to the text messages and the reasons for disagreement in the two methods. In addition, we evaluated the most appropriate time during the day for sending text messages.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We included 258 participants; 99 (38.4%) participated in the text messaging survey and 177 (68.6%) in the face-to-face survey. Compared with the face-to-face survey, the text messaging survey had much lower response rates to at least one question (38.4% vs 68.6%) and to all 7 questions (27.9% vs 67.4%) with moderate data agreement (most kappa values between .5 and .75, the intraclass correlation coefficients between .53 to .72). Participants who took part in both surveys gave the same acceptability rating for both methods (median 4.0 for both on a 5-point scale, 1=disliked very much and 5=liked very much). The costs per questionnaire for the text messaging method were much lower than the costs for the face-to-face method: ¥19.7 (US $3.13) versus ¥33.9 (US $5.39) for all questionnaires, and ¥27.1 (US $4.31) versus ¥34.4 (US $5.47) for completed questionnaires. The main reasons for not replying were that participants did not receive text messages, they were too busy to reply, or they did not see text messages in time. The main reasons for disagreement in responses were that participants forgot their answers in the text messaging survey and that they changed their minds. We found that participants were more likely to reply to text messages immediately during 2 time periods: 8 AM to 3 PM and 8 PM to 9 PM.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The text messaging method had reasonable data agreement and low cost, but a low response rate. Further research is needed to evaluate effectiveness of measures that can increase the response rate, especially in collecting longitudinal data by text messaging.
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrated Early Childhood Development, Capital Institute of Pediatrics, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Ye
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Michelle Helena
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: van Velthoven
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Josip
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Car
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rudan
authors.forename: Yanfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Qiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Xiaozhen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Robert W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Scherpbier
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers; D002681:China; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007228:Infant Nutrition Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control*; D007227:Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D019035:Rural Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012424:Rural Population; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D017216:Telemedicine; D060145:Text Messaging
keywords: child nutrition sciences; data collection; program evaluation; text messaging