Smartphone versus pen-and-paper data collection of infant feeding practices in rural China

This study compared smartphone data collection to the use of pen and paper – for recording infant feeding practices in a maternal, new-born, and child health household survey – for differences in data quality (data recording, data entry, open-ended answers, and inter-rater reliability), time consumption, costs, interviewers’ perceptions, and problems encountered. Researchers recruited mothers of infants aged 0–23 months in four village clinics in Zhaozhou Township, Hebei Province, China, and randomly assigned them to a smartphone or pen-and-paper questionnaire group. Mothers in each group were questioned by two interviewers (who kept separate records) on their infant feeding practices; all 120 mothers completed the study. Data recording errors were prevented in the smartphone questionnaire. The pen-and-paper questionnaires (60 mothers and 120 questionnaires) contained 192 data recording errors in 55 questionnaires. There was no significant difference in recording variation between the groups for the questionnaire pairs or variables. The smartphone questionnaires were automatically uploaded and no data entry errors occurred. Even after double data entry of the pen-and-paper questionnaires, 65 per cent (78 of 120) did not match and needed to be checked. There was no significant difference between the two interviews in their mean duration. The mean costs per questionnaire were higher for the smartphone method (¥143, equal to US$23 at the exchange rate on 24 April 2012) than for the pen-and-paper method (¥83 or US $13), but the authors argue that costs would be similar in a larger-scale survey. The smartphone method was acceptable to interviewers. After a pilot test, only minor problems were encountered (for example, the system halted for a few seconds or shut down), which did not result in data loss