ArticleJournal of clinical epidemiology2014
Open-source electronic data capture system offered increased accuracy and cost-effectiveness compared with paper methods in Africa.
Article in Journal of clinical epidemiology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Data Quality and Cost-effectiveness Analyses of Electronic and Paper-Based Interviewer-Administered Public Health Surveys: Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Pooled it
- Electronic Data Capture Versus Conventional Data Collection Methods in Clinical Pain Studies: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Pooled it
- Assessing the feasibility of a web-based outcome measurement system in child and adolescent mental health services - myHealthE a randomised controlled feasibility pilot study.Child and adolescent mental health · 2023Trial
- Mobile electronic versus paper case report forms in clinical trials: a randomized controlled trial.BMC medical research methodology · 2017Trial
- Trial
- Optimizing adolescent HIV care: a review of EMR system quality for clinical monitoring in Zambia.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- [Transforming vaccination brigades with an offline digital app: evidence from the Peruvian Amazon, 2025Transformando as brigadas de vacinação por meio de um aplicativo digital sem conexão com a internet: evidências da Amazônia peruana, 2025].Revista panamericana de salud publica = Pan American journal of public health · 2026Article
- Concordance of data on key malaria indicators between DHIS2 and source documents, and influencing factors at public primary health facilities in eastern Uganda: a mixed methods study.Malaria journal · 2025Article
- Screening Workers for Occupational Exposure to Respirable Crystalline Silica: Development and Usability of an Electronic Data Capture Tool.JMIR human factors · 2025Article
- The administration of the paper and electronic versions of the Manual Ability Measure-36 (MAM-36) and Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS) is equivalent in people with multiple sclerosis.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2024Article
- Implementation of RedCap data systems in Kenyan psychiatric rehabilitation: a community case study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Validation of a sports nutrition knowledge questionnaire for athletes in the United Kingdom and Ireland.Journal of nutritional science · 2023Article
- Staff preferences towards electronic data collection from a national take-home naloxone program: a cross-sectional study.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2022Article
- The association between research funding status and clinical research papers' citation impact in Japan: A cross-sectional bibliometric study.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
- An Open-Source, Standard-Compliant, and Mobile Electronic Data Capture System for Medical Research (OpenEDC): Design and Evaluation Study.JMIR medical informatics · 2021Article
- Implementing a Redcap-based research data collection system for mental health.Revista Colombiana de psiquiatria · 2021Article
- Leveraging phone-based mobile technology to improve data quality at health facilities in rural Malawi: a best practice project.Malaria journal · 2021Article
- Article
- Admissions to a Low-Resource Neonatal Unit in Malawi Using a Mobile App: Digital Perinatal Outcome Audit.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2020Article
- Paper Versus Digital Data Collection Methods for Road Safety Observations: Comparative Efficiency Analysis of Cost, Timeliness, Reliability, and Results.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesExisting 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
settingTo 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.
resultsDuring 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).
conclusionThis 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).
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.