Telephone Interviewing: A Method to Reach Fathers in Family Research

Collecting data from fathers has been an ongoing problem for researchers interested in developing a comprehensive view of the mother-child relationship from data-producing samples of families. The sampling design for a recent pilot of an intervention addressing the mother-child relationship included multiple data sources. One component required obtaining data from fathers of school-age children whose mothers were in the treatment phase for early-stage breast cancer. It was anticipated that information provided by fathers would be a valuable addition for describing the quality of the mother-child relationship and providing an important adjunct to understanding how the mother’s cancer experiences influenced her relationship with her child. Telephone interviewing was selected as the method for collecting data from the fathers. Limitations and strengths of this method are discussed along with utilization of the method. Telephone interviewing of the fathers was subsequently incorporated into a full clinical trial of the intervention.