Collecting Data on Sexual Behavior: Face-to-Face Interviews versus Mobile Phone Surveys

Collecting data on sexual behavior based on recall has always been a concern. In this paper we compared data gathered from face to face interviews with daily information provided using the mobile phones through the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). With information from a purposive sample of 90 couples in Metro Cebu where one of the spouses/partners is a participant of the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey, we determined whether the reported coital frequency differed according to the manner the data were gathered. We used the endline survey to capture the seven-day recall information and the daily responses of the past seven days (to mobile phones) to compare the consistencies of the responses. Results revealed that with respect to coital frequency, data from mobile phones were higher than face-to-face interviews with respect to sex age group, marital status, work status, education and household assets. There were differences also observed between couples with husbands/males reporting higher frequencies than their wives/partners irrespective of the method of data collection. The findings highlight the importance of data collection methods in gathering sensitive information in less developed societies where open discussions of sensitive issues like sexual activities remain taboo.