J Korean Acad Fam Med.  1997 Oct;18(10):1054-1068.

Methodological Aspects of a Telephone Survey on the Behavioral Risk Factors in Korea

• Cho BL
• Huh BY

Abstract

BACKGROUND: A survey is the only direct way of determining the distribution of behavioral risk factors among a population. The department of Family Medicine in Seoul national university hospital adopted telephone interviewing for collecting information about behavioral risk factors of Koreans. Because methodological aspect of telephone survey is different according to the telephone and communication environment of the area in which the survey would be held, we tried to figure out adequate methodological aspects of a telephone survey on the behavioral r isk factor in Korea.
METHODS
We sampled telephone numbers from the telephone number database which is supported by Infornet Ltd. with stratified cluster random sampling method and selected respondent by using algorithm of Kish. 13 part-time job interviewers were trained for 6 hours and then interviews were made in a fixed area for the time assigned.
RESULTS
13 interviewers tried to do 1,826 interviews for 4 weeks. Sociodemographic characteristics of respondents were compared with the census estimates and another face to face interview and there were no significant differences. A response rate of 79.8%, refusal rate of 12.9% and interview efficiency of 58.1% were obtained, yielding 1060 completed interview. A total of 28,830 person minutes of interview time were spent on the survey with an average of 27.2 minutes per completed interview.
CONCLUSIONS
Sampling method using the telephone number database could be used keeping the representativeness of the samples and telephone survey was considered to be reliable and affordable method for determining the prevalence of behavioral risk factors in Korea.

MeSH Terms

Censuses
Surveys and Questionnaires
Disulfiram
Humans
Interviews as Topic
Korea*
Prevalence
Risk Factors*
Seoul
Telephone*
Disulfiram