Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Jul 17, 2019
Date Accepted: Sep 27, 2020
Interactive text surveys in public health research: a novel assessment for bedtime routines
ABSTRACT
Background:
Traditional research methodology, especially questionnaires and paper-based assessments, limit in-depth understanding of the fluid dynamic processes associated with child wellbeing and development. This includes bedtime routines. The increase in innovative digital technologies, alongside greater use and familiarity among the public, create unique opportunities to use these technical developments in research.
Objective:
Two studies examined the possibility of developing an interactive text-survey assessment of children’s bedtime routines focusing on user feedback and a stepped approach, which informed decision making processes.
Methods:
A PPI project showed clear preference for interactive text-surveys regarding bedtime routines. The developed interactive text-survey included questions on bedtime routine activities and was delivered for 7 consecutive nights to participating parents’ mobile phones. A total of 200 parents participated. Apart from the completion of the text-survey, feedback was completed by participants while data on response, completion and retention rates were also captured.
Results:
There was a high retention rate (92.5%) and response rates were high (87%) with only a small percentage of participants reporting problems caused by completing the assessment.
Conclusions:
This study demonstrated the potential of deploying SMS text-based surveys within public health research to capture and quantify real-time information on recurrent dynamic processes. Changes and adaptations based on recommendations are a crucial next step in further exploring the diagnostic and potential intervention properties of text survey and text messaging approaches.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.