Elsevier

Addictive Behaviors

Volume 25, Issue 1, January–February 2000, Pages 1-11
Addictive Behaviors

Using interactive voice response technology and timeline follow-back methodology in studying binge eating and drinking behavior: Different answers to different forms of the same question?

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-4603(99)00031-3Get rights and content

Abstract

As part of a study of the relationship of binge eating, alcohol use, mood, and stressors, we compared the results of two forms of reporting on binge eating and drinking behavior. Forty-three first-year college women participated in an interactive voice response (IVR) study for 12 weeks. Participants answered computer-administered questions daily via IVR technology on number of eating binges and number of alcoholic drinks consumed. After 12 weeks, participants completed a Timeline Follow-back (TLFB) interview retrospectively for number of binges and drinks in the past 12 weeks. Results of this distally retrospective methodology (commonly used in drinking research and applied here also to binge eating) were compared to the results of daily IVR reporting. There was convergence across measures for drinking behavior, but divergence between IVR and TLFB for binge eating reports. TLFB reports underrepresented actual binge eating frequency, which calls into question the validity of applying this methodology to the assessment of binge eating.

Section snippets

Participants

During the summer before their college entry, 1,665 first-year female college students (ages 18–19) completed a general screening instrument assessing eating behaviors and attitudes, and drinking behaviors. Study participants were selected from the pool of 1,038 (62%) of the students who gave consent for future contact. Participants were chosen based on their reported frequencies of recent binge eating and drinking, with oversampling for these behaviors of interest. Participants were selected

IVR response rate

Study participants provided 82.4% of the total possible 3,612 data points (84 days × 43 participants) of the IVR study. (Two participants who provided less than 3 weeks of data (one gave 9 reports, the other 16), despite numerous attempts to contact them and encourage their ongoing participation, were considered nonparticipants and were dropped from the study.) This response rate is respectable albeit lower than the 93% response rate reported by Searles et al. (1995) in a study of male drinkers

Discussion

The main finding of this study is that while TLFB appeared to fairly accurately measure drinking behavior, this same methodology did a poor job of representing binge eating. In assessing binge eating, TLFB data were discrepant from actual binge eating behavior as recorded by daily IVR. In assessing drinking, TLFB data mapped on well to actual drinking behavior as recorded by daily IVR.

In going beyond how well the methods chart the behaviors, to how well they identify behavior of potential

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by a grant from the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation to Dean D. Krahn, and a National Science Foundation Fellowship to Anna M. Bardone. We thank the Vermont Alcohol Research Center, and in particular James C. Mundt and Dan Walter.

References (11)

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