The results of this study suggest that offering a choice of telephone or postal completion methods can result in a dramatic increase in response rates compared with postal completion alone. This study was not a randomised trial and there could be other explanations for the observed effect. The intervention was complex. It included offering a choice, and offering a choice of two methods that differed in several ways. While we cannot exclude the possibility that the mere offer of a choice was responsible for the effect, the pattern of results suggests that it is the opportunity to complete questionnaires by telephone that is crucial. Telephone completion compared with postal completion allows for ready translation to more languages and provides social support to complete the questionnaire. Perhaps most importantly it removes the reading obstacle to questionnaire completion thereby allowing the estimated 20–25% of the UK population who are functionally illiterate [20] to participate in the research process.
The increased response rate obtained by administering questionnaires by telephone raises two questions: first, did the increase in response rate vary by social group; and second, were responses obtained by telephone different to those obtained by post. Regarding differential response rates across social groups, the response from those offered a choice in this study was higher for English speakers than for non English speakers. The lack of data from non responders means, however, that we are not able to assess how representative the responders are of the telephone or postal groups overall.
The data do not identify a reason why non-English speakers were less likely to opt for completing the questionnaire by telephone than were English speakers. It may reflect a failure of the trial to engage non-English speakers in the research process. Alternatively, it may reflect cultural differences in, for example, willingness to talk to strangers over the telephone. Further work is required to understand why non-English speaking women were less likely to choose to complete questionnaires by telephone than were English speaking women. Understanding this may allow telephone administration to be offered in ways that increase acceptability, and hence, use for non-English speakers and thereby increase response rates further.
Comparing responses from the two modalities revealed differences in assessed attitudes: women completing the questionnaire over the telephone were more likely to be classified as having positive attitudes towards undergoing antenatal SCT screening than women completing the postal questionnaire. There were no differences in knowledge by completion modality. One explanation is that the difference may be due to the way the questions were asked or social desirability. Alternatively it may be because the study was not randomised. That is women who opted to complete the questionnaire over the telephone had more positive attitudes towards undergoing the test than women who completed the questionnaire by post.
There are financial costs involved in offering women a choice of telephone or postal questionnaire completion methods. These include the researcher time to administer the questionnaire over the telephone as well as the cost of using telephone interpreters. The use of telephone interpreters did not negate the need (or cost) for translating written materials. Research budgets should include funding to cover all these costs.
There are potential problems associated with administering questionnaires over the telephone. The person administering the questionnaire needs to be trained to ensure that the potential participant does not feel under any pressure to participate in the evaluation or to complete the questionnaire. Training is also required to ensure that questions are not asked in a leading way i.e. in a way likely to guide respondents to answer in a particular way.
For women who opted to complete the questionnaire by telephone, the use of interpreters did not appear to pose any problems. The use of telephone interpreters allows greater flexibility than using written translations because the languages required do not require specifying in advance. However the use of telephone interpreters does not allow for the use of quality control procedures such as back translation that are available with written translations.
There has been some debate about the use of translation services within the NHS which cost in the region of £55 million per annum [21]. It has been argued that the use of such services may compound rather than ameliorate the health problems of non-English speakers by reducing the need for them to learn English and thereby implicitly encouraging non-English speakers to remain outside of the dominant culture [22]. Others have argued that the lack of translation services results in poorer healthcare for non-English speakers [23]. Whilst this debate is likely to continue within the context of service provision, it is important to acknowledge that this debate is not applicable in research settings. A prerequisite for reliable trials is that trial outcomes are obtained for all participants and are representative of the population in general [2]. They therefore need to include people who do as well as those who do not speak English.
Strengths and limitations
The strength of this study is that it illustrates the acceptability and feasibility of offering respondants the option of completing questionnaires over the telephone with and without interpreters. A weakness of the study is that the effect of offering telephone administration, although large, is based on observational data, and so uncertainty remains about a causal link between offering women an opportunity to complete questionnaires over the telephone and the observed increase in questionnaire response rates. Whilst the study took place in areas with high levels of social deprivation, individual level markers of social deprivation were not available. It is therefore unknown by how much, if at all, offering telephone administration of the questionnaire increased the percentage of participants with high levels of material and social deprivation. The results also raise questions about the equivalence of responses to questions obtained using the two methods. More research is needed to determine if this is due to differences in types of people responding or differences in demand characteristics of the two methods.