A comparison of three daily coital diary designs and a phone-in regimen

Barrier contraceptive trials and disease intervention studies often utilize coital diaries to measure sexual exposures: dates and frequency of interco urse, product use, additional or alternative contraceptive use, and menstru al bleeding. The validity of these self-reported data is a matter of debate , but if used, better diary designs are sought. We studied 3 different coit al diaries, plus a phone-in regimen (none or weekly) in a 3 X 2 factorial d esign to compare participant ratings and promptness of recording. Our under lying presumption was that ease of and satisfaction with use, and promptnes s of data collection, are associated with greater accuracy. A self-complete d questionnaire at the end of the study collected comparative retrospective data. Diary 1 captured information about a single day on one page and had three columns, for up to three possible acts of intercourse. Diary 2 had th e same question format as the first diary, but contained 7 days per page. D iary 3 had 7 days on a page, but instead of a column for each act, particip ants enumerated the number of acts, the types of contraception used, and co ndom use details. Half of the women in each diary group phoned in their dat a weekly. Phone-in improved participants' satisfaction with the diary desig n as reflected by higher ratings of diary features. Phone-in did not improv e recall of data at the end of the study for any of the diaries. There were no differences in the promptness of diary completion. Diaries 1 and 2 show ed good concordance with recalled data, and participants expressed a prefer ence for the layout of Diary 2. Women assigned to Diary 3 expressed dissati sfaction with the design and were worse at recalling data at the end of the study, probably due to the complexity of that diary design. (C) 2001 Elsev ier Science Inc. All rights reserved.