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Open-source electronic data capture system offered increased accuracy and cost-effectiveness compared with paper methods in Africa

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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Dillon, David G., Pirie, Fraser, Rice, Stephen, Pomilla, Cristina, Sandhu, Manjinder S., Motala, Ayesha A., Young, Elizabeth H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4271740/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25135245
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2014.06.012
Descripción
Sumario: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).