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

• DOI: 10.2196/resprot.8071
• Publication Date: 2018-04-16T10:15:05Z
• Authors: Jose Luis Ibarra; Jessica Marie Agas; Melissa Lee; Julia Lily Pan; Alison Meredith B...
• Keywords: Original Paper; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; 3. Good health

Background: Recruiting hard-to-reach populations for health research is challenging. Web-based platforms offer one way to recruit specific samples purposes, but little known about the feasibility of online recruitment and representativeness comparability recruited through different platforms. Objective: The objectives this study were determine recruiting a population (pregnant smokers) using 4 compare participants each platform. Methods: A screener survey distributed Qualtrics Panel, Soapbox Sample, Reddit, Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk). Descriptive statistics used summarize results platform, including eligibility yield, quality income, race, age, gestational age. Results: Of 3847 screened across all platforms, 535 eligible 308 completed survey. mTurk yielded fewest responses (n=9), 100% (9/9) which passed several metrics verifying pregnancy smoking status. Panel 14 responses, 86% (12/14) screening. Sample produced 107 surveys, 67% (72/107) found be responses. Advertising Reddit highest completion rate (n=178), only 29.2% (52/178) those surveys metrics. We significant differences in number previous pregnancies, age initiation, current smokers, education, income (P<.001). Conclusions: Although platform successfully pregnant varied quality, cost, percentage complete Moving forward, investigators should pay careful attention yield cost maximize internal external validity.