Determining the behavioral risk factors of people living in the districts of Adana city

Background and Aim: In this study we searched health related behavioral risk factors of people living in the districts of Adana city (excluding Seyhan, Yuregir, Saricam and Cukurova).Materials and Methods: We used ?telephone interview? method. The sample was randomly selected from the list of home phone numbers for the districts of Adana city. We used a modified version of ?Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System? questionnaire which was designed for telephone interview in the United States. During the interviews we used CATI system (CATI = Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) while asking the questions and recording the data. The CATI system was conducted with "Uysal WebQ 1.0" and "Epi Info" software. The interviews were held in ?Telephone and Internet Research Center of Cukurova University? (TISAM).Results: The response rate was 58,05 % (1096/1888). The mean age was 43,36±14,31 years, the prevalence of people doing regular physical exercise was 41,7 %, the prevalence for smoking was 23,5 % and for alcohol consumption was 17,3 % in men and 0,8 % in women.Conclusion:Our results are concordant with those of previous studies. Our study showed that telephone interview method would be a convenient method for the field studies designed for large populations in a large geographical area due to advantages of cost-effectiveness, time benefit and reliable data.Keywords:Adana, behavioral risk factors, telephone interview, computer assisted telephone interviewing.