Use of Interviewer-Administered Telephone Surveys during Infectious Disease Outbreaks, Epidemics, and Pandemics: A Scoping Review
Authors: Arita Sayaka , Ba Mouhamadou Faly , Traoré Zoumana , Bonnet Emmanuel , Faye Adama , Ridde Valery 
Published: November 2022

Introduction

During the COVID-19 crisis, researchers had to collect data remotely. Telephone surveys and interviews can quickly gather data from a distance without heavy expense. Although interviewer-administered telephone surveys (IATS) can accommodate the needs in international public health research, the literature on its use during infectious disease outbreaks is scarce. This scoping review aimed to map characteristics of IATS during infectious disease outbreaks.

Methods

IATS conducted principally during infectious disease outbreaks and answered by informants at least 18 years old were searched from PubMed and EBSCO. There was a manual addition of relevant documents identified during an initial search. Global trends were reported using different groupings, and study details were compared between before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results

70 IATS published between 2003 and 2022 were identified. 57.1 % were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some changes in the use of this data collection modality were observed. The proportion of IATS in LMICs rose from 3.3 % before the COVID-19 pandemic to 32.5 %. The share of qualitative studies grew from 6.7 % to 32.5 %. IATS performed during the COVID-19 pandemic focused on more diverse, specific population groups, such as patients and healthcare professionals. The usage of mobile phones to do IATS studies increased from 3.3 % to 25.0 %.

Conclusion

IATS are used globally with high frequency in the Western Pacific Region and high income countries. During the COVID-19 pandemic, IATS was performed in more countries to investigate more diverse target populations. Nonetheless, researchers should consider how to address technical and financial challenges for ITAS to be more inclusive and representative. For better use and more efficient deployment of IATS, methodological details need to be exchanged.

What is already known on this topic

Telephones have been playing an important role in data collection especially when data needs to be gathered quickly and remotely during infectious disease outbreaks, humanitarian crises, and natural disasters.

The use of online surveys is increasing globally alongside digitalization and technological development.

However, the transformation regarding the use of telephone surveys is not well documented.

What this study adds

We performed a scoping review to grasp characteristics and trends of telephone surveys.

We found that more telephone surveys have been conducted in low and middle income countries during the COVID-19 pandemic (32.5 %) compared to before COVID-19 (3.3 %).

We learned that telephone surveys during the pandemic have investigated more specific and diverse population groups than the pre-pandemic period.

How this study might affect research, practice or policy

The increased usage of cell phones to operate IATS align with the growing mobile phone ownership, thanks to which the global mobilization of this survey mode might be accelerated in the future.

However, we observed inadequate information on study details, including the number of languages spoken by interviewers as well as technical enhancement or optimization.

We encourage sharing techniques and knowledge among researchers whereby ITAS could be further improved and contribute to more inclusive public health research.