Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Apr 5, 2017
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 6, 2017 - Apr 6, 2017
Date Accepted: Jun 19, 2017
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Using Android and Open Data Kit Technology in Data Management for Research in Resource-Limited Settings in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: Cross-Sectional Household Survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
Data collection in Sub-Saharan Africa has traditionally been paper-based. However, the popularization of Android mobile devices and data capture software has brought paperless data management within reach. We used Open Data Kit (ODK) technology on Android mobile devices during a household survey in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to describe the pros and cons of deploying ODK for data management.
Methods:
A descriptive cross-sectional household survey was carried out by 6 data collectors between April and May 2016. Data were obtained from 1706 persons in 601 households across 6 communities in 3 states in the Niger Delta. The use of Android mobile devices and ODK technology involved form building, testing, collection, aggregation, and download for data analysis. The median duration for data collection per household and per individual was 25.7 and 9.3 min, respectively.
Results:
Data entries per device ranged from 33 (33/1706, 1.93%) to 482 (482/1706, 28.25%) individuals between 9 (9/601, 1.5%) and 122 (122/601, 20.3%) households. The most entries (470) were made by data collector 5. Only 2 respondents had data entry errors (2/1706, 0.12%). However, 73 (73/601, 12.1%) households had inaccurate date and time entries for when data collection started and ended. The cost of deploying ODK was estimated at US $206.7 in comparison with the estimated cost of US $466.7 for paper-based data management.
Conclusions:
We found the use of mobile data capture technology to be efficient and cost-effective. As Internet services improve in Africa, we advocate their use as effective tools for health information management.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
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.