Internet Recruitment and Retention for a 6 Months' Longitudinal Study

AbstractPurpose: To examine factors influencing recruitment and retention of study participants in a longitudinal study.Methods: After completion of a longitudinal (6 months) study of long-term indwelling urinary catheter users, three types of data were analyzed: number of problems with data entry into an online survey, number of reminders sent by study staff to participants, and number and nature of e-mail contacts between participants and study staff and among study staff regarding the study.Conclusions: The Internet can be used effectively for research, especially involving small, specialized populations. In order to retain study subjects and obtain complete and accurate data, study staff must be closely involved and responsive to participants' issues, and technical support staff must be readily available and invested in the research project.Clinical Relevance: Using the Internet to reach small, special, marginalized, or geographically dispersed populations for research is becoming common. Researchers need to know how best to recruit, support, and retain participants in Internet-based studies.Key wordsInternet research, Internet recruitment, study retentionThe Internet has become ubiquitous in modern life. It enables people to communicate with each other regardless of where they are located, thus taking us one step closer to the concept of a "global village." It also enables the homebound and the disabled with limited mobility to participate in social interactions that were previously difficult or impossible to achieve. Survey research has been popular for many years because of its relatively low cost and, for well-designed surveys, high-quality information yield (Fowler, 2002). Subject recruitment for surveys is a science fraught with pitfalls. Large national surveys use complex sampling frames and special analytic techniques. Smaller, special purpose surveys such as voter polls target individuals meeting certain criteria, for example, likely voters. However, bias can be introduced depending on how the sample is recruited. Recruiting by telephone may miss people using cell phones, in person recruitment may miss people with limited mobility or the homebound, and mail recruitment may miss those who are incarcerated, do not have a permanent address, or have low literacy.Using the Internet to recruit participants to research studies is becoming increasingly popular, particularly for surveys. The Internet is especially valuable when studying members of marginalized, geographically dispersed or special populations, as long as they are likely to have adequate computer skills and Internet access. For example. Rosser et al. (2009) conducted a study examining the feasibility of utilizing the Internet to recruit Latino men who have sex with men (MSM) for an HIV risk study. Using a banner advertisement on a well-known gay Website and offering a small amount of money for participating in a study, they were able to obtain 1,026 completed baseline surveys that they considered "valid" (Rosser et al., 2009).In another study related to a sensitive topic, Finnish researchers utilized the Internet to recruit subjects for follow-up after they used an anonymous, free Internet utility to gauge problem drinking (Koski-Jannes, Cunningham, fr Tolonen, 2009). Out of 343 baseline questionnaires, they were able to follow up with 61% 1 year later.A small population was reached through the Internet by Beck (2009), who carried out a phenomenological study on the experience of mothers caring for infants with obstetric brachial plexus injuries. She was able to recruit 23 participants to her study by advertising on a Website devoted to this particular injury; 1 1 of them participated in the study entirely by electronic communication (Beck, 2009).A review by Miller and Sonderlund (2010) found that using the Internet to carry out research on illicit drug use was both common and fruitful. …