[The telephone interview: the methodological strategy for collecting population data].

The interview by telephone is not an ordinary procedure to obtain investigation data. By knowing that is rarely used in Brazil, the study was planned aiming to: identify the individuals' characteristics who answer the sampled telephones; raise the interviews' statements about the operational technique and evaluate the telephone used as data collection procedure. The data indicate that most of the people who were interviewed, were females, between 30 and 40 years old and housewives. The interviewers considered between 30 and 40 years old and housewives. The interviewers considered the experience interesting, in despite of the difficulty to maintain people talking on the phone. The authors state that the interview by telephone is an efficient and fast way of bringing up data for investigation which aims to raise opinions about certain matters.