Recall accuracy of weekly automated surveys of health care utilization and infectious disease symptoms among infants over the first year of life.

Automated surveys, by interactive voice response (IVR) or email, are increasingly used for clinical research. Although convenient and inexpensive, they have uncertain validity. We sought to assess the accuracy of longitudinally-collected automated survey responses compared to medical records. Using...

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Main Authors: Catherine Ley, Lauren Willis, Maria de la Luz Sanchez, Julie Parsonnet
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2019-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226623
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spelling doaj-75bad5e105bb4be09fef3df5c87272002021-03-04T11:20:32ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032019-01-011412e022662310.1371/journal.pone.0226623Recall accuracy of weekly automated surveys of health care utilization and infectious disease symptoms among infants over the first year of life.Catherine LeyLauren WillisMaria de la Luz SanchezJulie ParsonnetAutomated surveys, by interactive voice response (IVR) or email, are increasingly used for clinical research. Although convenient and inexpensive, they have uncertain validity. We sought to assess the accuracy of longitudinally-collected automated survey responses compared to medical records. Using data collected from a well-characterized, prospective birth cohort over the first year of life, we examined concordance between guardians' reports of their infants' health care visits ascertained by weekly automated survey (IVR or email) and those identified by medical chart review. Among 180 survey-visit pairs, concordance was 51%, with no change as number of visits per baby increased. Accuracy of recall was higher by email compared to IVR (61 vs. 43%; adjusted OR = 2.5 95% CI: 1.3-4.8), did not vary by health care encounter type (hospitalization: 50%, ER: 64%, urgent care: 44%, primary care: 52%; p = 0.75), but was higher for fever (77%, adjusted OR = 5.1 95%CI: 1.5-17.7) and respiratory illness (58%, adjusted OR = 2.9 95%CI: 1.5-5.8) than for other diagnoses. For the 75 mothers in these encounters, 69% recalled at least one visit; among 41 mothers with two or more visits, 85% recalled at least one visit. Predictors of accurate reporting by mothers after adjusting for illness in the baby included increased age and increased years of education (age per year, β = 0.05, p = 0.03; education per year, β = 0.08, p = 0.04). Additional strategies beyond use of automated surveys are needed to ascertain accurate health care utilization in longitudinal cohort studies, particularly in healthy populations with little motivation for accurate reporting.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226623
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Catherine Ley
Lauren Willis
Maria de la Luz Sanchez
Julie Parsonnet
spellingShingle Catherine Ley
Lauren Willis
Maria de la Luz Sanchez
Julie Parsonnet
Recall accuracy of weekly automated surveys of health care utilization and infectious disease symptoms among infants over the first year of life.
PLoS ONE
author_facet Catherine Ley
Lauren Willis
Maria de la Luz Sanchez
Julie Parsonnet
author_sort Catherine Ley
title Recall accuracy of weekly automated surveys of health care utilization and infectious disease symptoms among infants over the first year of life.
title_short Recall accuracy of weekly automated surveys of health care utilization and infectious disease symptoms among infants over the first year of life.
title_full Recall accuracy of weekly automated surveys of health care utilization and infectious disease symptoms among infants over the first year of life.
title_fullStr Recall accuracy of weekly automated surveys of health care utilization and infectious disease symptoms among infants over the first year of life.
title_full_unstemmed Recall accuracy of weekly automated surveys of health care utilization and infectious disease symptoms among infants over the first year of life.
title_sort recall accuracy of weekly automated surveys of health care utilization and infectious disease symptoms among infants over the first year of life.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
series PLoS ONE
issn 1932-6203
publishDate 2019-01-01
description Automated surveys, by interactive voice response (IVR) or email, are increasingly used for clinical research. Although convenient and inexpensive, they have uncertain validity. We sought to assess the accuracy of longitudinally-collected automated survey responses compared to medical records. Using data collected from a well-characterized, prospective birth cohort over the first year of life, we examined concordance between guardians' reports of their infants' health care visits ascertained by weekly automated survey (IVR or email) and those identified by medical chart review. Among 180 survey-visit pairs, concordance was 51%, with no change as number of visits per baby increased. Accuracy of recall was higher by email compared to IVR (61 vs. 43%; adjusted OR = 2.5 95% CI: 1.3-4.8), did not vary by health care encounter type (hospitalization: 50%, ER: 64%, urgent care: 44%, primary care: 52%; p = 0.75), but was higher for fever (77%, adjusted OR = 5.1 95%CI: 1.5-17.7) and respiratory illness (58%, adjusted OR = 2.9 95%CI: 1.5-5.8) than for other diagnoses. For the 75 mothers in these encounters, 69% recalled at least one visit; among 41 mothers with two or more visits, 85% recalled at least one visit. Predictors of accurate reporting by mothers after adjusting for illness in the baby included increased age and increased years of education (age per year, β = 0.05, p = 0.03; education per year, β = 0.08, p = 0.04). Additional strategies beyond use of automated surveys are needed to ascertain accurate health care utilization in longitudinal cohort studies, particularly in healthy populations with little motivation for accurate reporting.
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226623
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