NCJ Number
173620
Journal
Journal of Drug Issues Volume: 28 Issue: 2 Dated: Spring 1998 Pages: 455-482
Date Published
1998
Length
28 pages
Annotation
Hoping to understand the apparent conflict between the increasing use of telephone surveys and the negative methodological literature, this study reviewed the research on the relevant issues for both alcohol and drug-use surveys.
Abstract
The working hypotheses were that enhanced telephone-survey models could be used to minimize the method's disadvantages and that there are many substance-abuse research problems and situations for which the advantages of a telephone survey outweigh the disadvantages. The potential advantages of telephone surveys of substance abuse are cost-efficiency compared to face- to-face surveys, smaller staff and more rapid implementation than face-to-face interviews, access to some hard-to-reach populations, and privacy. Potential disadvantages of telephone substance abuse surveys are the noncoverage of people without telephones, administrative disadvantages, lower response rates compared to face-to-face surveys, and evidence of lower validity compared to face-to-face interviews. To be safe, investigators who are planning telephone or mixed-mode surveys of substance abuse should routinely use an enhanced survey model to ensure that the potential effects of noncoverage and nonresponse are minimized even in research situations where the combined potential for bias is estimated to be small. Acceptance of the results of substance-abuse surveys is apparently sensitive to even small amounts of noncoverage and nonresponse. Consequently, reports of the results of substance-abuse telephone surveys, as with any survey mode, should include an assessment of the potential impact of noncoverage and nonresponse for the population and the problem being addressed. 1 figure, 1 table, and 109 references