Automated and Interviewer-Administered Mobile Phone Surveys in Burkina Faso: Sociodemographic Differences Among Female Mobile Phone Survey Respondents and Nonrespondents.

BACKGROUND: The remarkable growth of cell phone ownership in low- and middle-income countries has generated significant interest in using cell phones for conducting surveys through computer-assisted telephone interviews, live interviewer-administered surveys, or automated surveys (ie, interactive voice response). OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to compare, by mode, the sociodemographic characteristics of cell phone owners who completed a follow-up phone survey with those who did not complete the survey. METHODS: The study was based on a nationally representative sample of women aged 15 to 49 years who reported cell phone ownership during a household survey in Burkina Faso in 2016. Female cell phone owners were randomized to participate in a computer-assisted telephone interview or hybrid interactive voice response follow-up phone survey 11 months after baseline interviews. Completion of the phone survey was defined as participants responding to more than 50% of questions in the phone survey. We investigated sociodemographic characteristics associated with cell phone survey completion using multivariable logistic regression models, stratifying the analysis by survey mode and by directly comparing computer-assisted telephone interview and hybrid interactive voice response respondents. RESULTS: A total of 1766 women were called for the phone survey between November 5 and 17, 2017. In both the computer-assisted telephone interview and hybrid interactive voice response samples, women in urban communities and women with secondary education or higher were more likely to complete the survey than their rural and less-educated counterparts. Compared directly, women who completed the hybrid interactive voice response survey had higher odds of having a secondary education than those who completed computer-assisted telephone interviews (odds ratio 1.7, 95% CI 1.1-2.6). CONCLUSIONS: In Burkina Faso, computer-assisted telephone interviews are the preferred method of conducting cell phone surveys owing to less sample distortion and a higher response rate compared with a hybrid interactive voice response survey.

Comparability of modern contraceptive use estimates between a face-to-face survey and a cellphone survey among women in Burkina Faso.

INTRODUCTION: The proliferation of cell phone ownership in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) presents the opportunity to collect public health indicators at a lower cost compared to face-to-face (FTF) surveys. This analysis assesses the equivalence of modern contraceptive prevalence estimates between a nationally representative FTF survey and a cell phone survey using random digit dialing (RDD) among women of reproductive age in Burkina Faso. METHODS: We analyzed data from two surveys conducted in Burkina Faso between December 2017 and May 2018. The FTF survey conducted by Performance Monitoring and Accountability (PMA2020) comprised a nationally representative sample of 3,556 women of reproductive age (15-49 years). The RDD survey was conducted using computer-assisted telephone interviewing and included 2,379 women of reproductive age. RESULTS: Compared to FTF respondents, women in the RDD sample were younger, were more likely to have a secondary degree and to speak French. RDD respondents were more likely to report using modern contraceptive use (40%) compared to FTF respondents (26%) and the difference remained unchanged after applying post-stratification weights to the RDD sample (39%). This difference surpassed the equivalence margin of 4%. The RDD sample also produced higher estimates of contraceptive use than the subsample of women who owned a phone in the FTF sample (32%). After adjusting for women's sociodemographic factors, the odds of contraceptive use were 1.9 times higher (95% CI: 1.6-2.2) in the RDD survey compared to the FTF survey and 1.6 times higher (95% CI: 1.3-1.8) compared to FTF phone owners. CONCLUSIONS: Modern contraceptive prevalence in Burkina Faso is over-estimated when using a cell phone RDD survey, even after adjusting for a number of sociodemographic factors. Further research should explore causes of differential estimates of modern contraceptive use by survey modes.