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| Year : 2014 | Volume
: 60
| Issue : 4 | Page : 416-417 |
Authors' reply
SA Rizwan, S Kant, K Goswami, SK Rai, P Misra
Department of Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi, India
| Date of Web Publication | 5-Nov-2014 |
Correspondence Address:
Dr. S A Rizwan
Department of Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
How to cite this article:
Rizwan S A, Kant S, Goswami K, Rai S K, Misra P. Authors' reply. J Postgrad Med 2014;60:416-7 |
Sir,
We thank Kaushal for the comments on our paper. [1] It was conceived a priori that alcohol use would be a factor associated with non-spousal sex. Thus, the question on alcohol use before sex was put only to those men also who reported non-spousal encounters. Since this particular study question was part of a larger study we were unable to explore this association in greater depth. We agree that the association between alcohol and spousal sex could be incorporated in future studies. Table 1 in the original article shows the proportion of married men who were currently staying with their spouses i.e., 27% but their alcohol-related spousal sexual encounter was not studied.
We did consider the possibility of social desirability bias at the study conception. We explored a number of options to collect sensitive information such as confidential polling booth method, self-administration of questionnaire and group methods such as randomized response. [2],[3] But given the study setting where the factory workers were extremely busy, largely illiterate and lacked free time after work, we discarded these options. Also, these methods prevent the collection of individual identities and would have precluded the association finding exercise. Therefore, the best possible option available to us was a direct face-to-face interview with a peer group facilitator who enabled the process of disclosing sensitive information, prior to the private and confidential interview. We have discussed this bias in another paper from this study. [4] Finally, we acknowledge the fact that the presence of social desirability bias is definite and should caution the readers to consider the fact such a bias would have shifted the association toward the null. Given this, the positive finding only reinforces our conclusions about the association. It is our opinion that in the study situations that prevailed, the method we used was the best possible option.
| :: References | |  |
| 1. | Kaushal K. Social desirability bias in face to face interviews. J Postgrad Med 2014;60:415-6.   |
| 2. | Hanck SE, Blankenship KM, Irwin KS, West BS, Kershaw T. Assessment ofself-reported sexual behavior and condom use among female sex workers in Indiausing a polling box approach: A preliminary report. Sex Transm Dis 2008;35:489-94. |
| 3. | Williams BL, Suen HK, Baffi C. Randomised response survey in health research. International Journal of Health Informatics1993;2:8-10. |
| 4. | Rizwan SA, Goswami K, Rai SK, Misra P, Kant S. HIV-risk behavior among male migrant factory workers in a North Indian city. Int J Clin Med [In press]. |
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