@article {943, title = {Open-source electronic data capture system offered increased accuracy and cost-effectiveness compared with paper methods in Africa.}, journal = {J Clin Epidemiol}, year = {2014}, month = {2014 Aug 15}, abstract = {

OBJECTIVES: Existing electronic data capture options are often financially unfeasible in resource-poor settings or difficult to support technically in the field. To help facilitate large-scale multicenter studies in sub-Saharan Africa, the African Partnership for Chronic Disease Research (APCDR) has developed an open-source electronic questionnaire (EQ).

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: To assess its relative validity, we compared the EQ against traditional pen-and-paper methods using 200 randomized interviews conducted in an ongoing type 2 diabetes case-control study in South Africa.

RESULTS: During its 3-month validation, the EQ had a lower frequency of errors (EQ, 0.17 errors per 100 questions; paper, 0.73 errors per 100 questions; P-value <=0.001), and a lower monetary cost per correctly entered question, compared with the pen-and-paper method. We found no marked difference in the average duration of the interview between methods (EQ, 5.4~minutes; paper, 5.6~minutes).

CONCLUSION: This validation study suggests that the EQ may offer increased accuracy, similar interview duration, and increased cost-effectiveness compared with paper-based data collection methods. The APCDR EQ software is freely available (https://github.com/apcdr/questionnaire).

}, issn = {1878-5921}, doi = {10.1016/j.jclinepi.2014.06.012}, author = {Dillon, David G and Pirie, Fraser and Pomilla, Cristina and Sandhu, Manjinder S and Motala, Ayesha A and Young, Elizabeth H} }