TY - JOUR
T1 - Interactive Voice Response and web-based questionnaires for population-based infectious disease reporting
AU - Bexelius, Christin
AU - Merk, Hanna
AU - Sandin, Sven
AU - Nyrén, Olof
AU - Kühlmann-Berenzon, Sharon
AU - Linde, Annika
AU - Litton, Jan Eric
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments This work was supported in part by the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, and in part by the European Community FP7 Integrated Project 231807 EPIWORK.
PY - 2010/10
Y1 - 2010/10
N2 - The authors aimed to evaluate the web and an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) phone service as vehicles in population-based infectious disease surveillance. Fourteen thousand subjects were randomly selected from the Swedish population register and asked to prospectively report all respiratory tract infections, including Influenzalike Illness (ILI-clinical symptoms indicative of influenza but no laboratory confirmation), immediately as they occurred during a 36-week period starting October 2007. Participants were classified as belonging to the web or IVR group based on their choice of technology for initial registration. In all, 1,297 individuals registered via IVR while 2,044 chose the web. The latter were more often young and well-educated than those registered via IVR. Overall, 52% of the participants reported at least one infection episode. The risk of an infectious disease report was 14% (95% CI: 6, 22%) higher in the web group than in the IVR group. For ILI the excess was 27% (95% CI: 11, 47%). After adjustments for socio-demographic factors, statistically non-significant excesses of 1 and 8% remained, indicating trivial differences potentially attributable to the two reporting techniques. With attention to confounding, it should be possible to combine the web and IVR for simple reporting of infectious disease symptoms.
AB - The authors aimed to evaluate the web and an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) phone service as vehicles in population-based infectious disease surveillance. Fourteen thousand subjects were randomly selected from the Swedish population register and asked to prospectively report all respiratory tract infections, including Influenzalike Illness (ILI-clinical symptoms indicative of influenza but no laboratory confirmation), immediately as they occurred during a 36-week period starting October 2007. Participants were classified as belonging to the web or IVR group based on their choice of technology for initial registration. In all, 1,297 individuals registered via IVR while 2,044 chose the web. The latter were more often young and well-educated than those registered via IVR. Overall, 52% of the participants reported at least one infection episode. The risk of an infectious disease report was 14% (95% CI: 6, 22%) higher in the web group than in the IVR group. For ILI the excess was 27% (95% CI: 11, 47%). After adjustments for socio-demographic factors, statistically non-significant excesses of 1 and 8% remained, indicating trivial differences potentially attributable to the two reporting techniques. With attention to confounding, it should be possible to combine the web and IVR for simple reporting of infectious disease symptoms.
KW - Influenza
KW - Internet
KW - Sentinel surveillance
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/78650308810
U2 - 10.1007/s10654-010-9484-y
DO - 10.1007/s10654-010-9484-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 20596884
AN - SCOPUS:78650308810
SN - 0393-2990
VL - 25
SP - 693
EP - 702
JO - European Journal of Epidemiology
JF - European Journal of Epidemiology
IS - 10
ER -