Evaluation of Conducting Phone Interviews on Sexual Behavior: An Iranian Population-Based Study

Phone interview is a safe way for collecting sensitive data due to no need for direct contact with the interviewees and their privacy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility and validity of phone interviewing using mobile phones to collect sensitive information related to the participants’ sexual behavior.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on the sexually active population of Marvdasht, Iran, from 2017 - 2018.

A total of 5,894 individuals (2,991 from urban and 2,903 from rural areas) from both genders (n = 3,202 males vs. n = 2,692 females) with an age range of 18 - 50 years were included in this study. The participation rate was convincing (92.18%), and the response rate to all questions was also very high (99.1%). According to the results, gender and place of residency had statistically significant associations with the rates of participation and response.

The results suggested that a phone interview is a potentially useful method for gathering sensitive information in Iranian population, a community with a religious background.