Completion of Self-Administered Questionnaires in a Sex Survey.

This paper examines completion of four-self administered questionnaires (SAQ) in the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS), a large national personal-visit survey on sexual behaviors and attitudes in the United States. Based on interviewer reports, only 66% of respondents self-administered all four SAQs, while 15% self-administered nono of them, and 20% did some of the SAQs themselves. Three factors that may affect the decision to self-administer the SAQs were explored: (a) capacity, (b) motivation, and (c) question sensitivity. Support was found for the capacity hypothesis, suggesting that literacy is a factor in the self-completion decision. Stranger support for the motivation hypothesis was found, with reluctant respondents being less likely to complete the SAQs themselves. Regarding the sensitivity hypothesis, the decision to self-administer doe not appear to be affected by the behaviors engaged in by respondents, or by the perceived sensitivity of these behaviors. However, the responses to the SAQ items themselves differ systematically by whether the SAQ was self-completed or done with the assistance of the interviewer. These findings suggest it is important to measure who completes the SAQ, and to attemp to maximize the self-completion of SAQs in surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]