Comparison of Online Survey Recruitment Platforms for Hard-to-Reach Pregnant Smoking Populations: Feasibility Study

Recruiting hard-to-reach populations for health research is challenging. Web-based platforms offer one way to recruit specific samples for research purposes, but little is known about the feasibility of online recruitment and the representativeness and comparability of samples recruited through diff...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:JMIR research protocols 2018-04, Vol.7 (4), p.e101-e101
Main Authors: Ibarra, Jose Luis, Agas, Jessica Marie, Lee, Melissa, Pan, Julia Lily, Buttenheim, Alison Meredith
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical decision making
Crowdsourcing
Decision making
Feasibility studies
Gift cards & certificates
Mortality
Original Paper
Participation
Polls & surveys
Pregnancy
Researchers
Smoking cessation
Social networks
Womens health
Workers
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Summary:Recruiting hard-to-reach populations for health research is challenging. Web-based platforms offer one way to recruit specific samples for research purposes, but little is known about the feasibility of online recruitment and the representativeness and comparability of samples recruited through different Web-based platforms. The objectives of this study were to determine the feasibility of recruiting a hard-to-reach population (pregnant smokers) using 4 different Web-based platforms and to compare participants recruited through each platform. A screener and survey were distributed online through Qualtrics Panel, Soapbox Sample, Reddit, and Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk). Descriptive statistics were used to summarize results of each recruitment platform, including eligibility yield, quality yield, income, race, age, and gestational age. Of the 3847 participants screened for eligibility across all 4 Web-based platforms, 535 were eligible and 308 completed the survey. Amazon mTurk yielded the fewest completed responses (n=9), 100% (9/9) of which passed several quality metrics verifying pregnancy and smoking status. Qualtrics Panel yielded 14 completed responses, 86% (12/14) of which passed the quality screening. Soapbox Sample produced 107 completed surveys, 67% (72/107) of which were found to be quality responses. Advertising through Reddit produced the highest completion rate (n=178), but only 29.2% (52/178) of those surveys passed the quality metrics. We found significant differences in eligibility yield, quality yield, age, number of previous pregnancies, age of smoking initiation, current smokers, race, education, and income (P
ISSN:1929-0748
1929-0748
DOI:10.2196/resprot.8071