Crowdsourced samples are increasing in popularity, particularly within psychological and addictive behaviors research. The trend has resulted in significant interest in the use of panel samples for the examination of behavioral and substance addictions. One newer panel platform, Qualtrics, has seen an increase in usage in recent years despite lack of research examining the validity of Qualtrics-produced data for addictive behaviors. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the validity of Qualtrics-obtained data for the most recently classified behavioral addiction-video gaming. The evaluation compared a Qualtricsrecruited video gamers sample (n = 586) to traditional community (n = 108) and student (n = 217) samples on demographics and key outcomes relevant to gaming disorder researchers (average playtime, frequency of gaming, and gaming disorder risk scores) to evaluate the generalizability of Qualtrics panel data. The results revealed that Qualtrics samples were comparable to a traditionally recruited community sample, but different from a student sample on gaming frequency ( p < .001) and risk for gaming disorder ( p < .001). The Qualtrics sample also had longer durations of average gaming time relative to the student sample ( p = .01), with some differences in demographics between the all three sources of recruitment. The findings suggest that Qualtrics may provide a suitable method of convenience panel recruitment, generalizable to the broader North American community, for research examining video gaming behaviors and gaming disorder. Public Health SignificanceThe findings of the study demonstrate that Qualtrics-recruited panel samples are comparable to community samples for investigations of video gamers and gaming disorder with regard to mental health and video gaming outcomes. Key differences exist in demographic profiles between Qualtrics, community-recruited, and student samples of video gamers.

The use of crowd-sourced and panel survey data in addiction research has become widespread. However, the validity of data obtained from newer panels such as Qualtrics has not been extensively evaluated. Furthermore, few addiction researchers appear to employ previously recommended guidelines for maximizing the quality of data obtained from panel samples. The goals of the present study were as follows: (a) to evaluate the quality of survey data obtained from Qualtrics including an evaluation of the company's internal data screening process and (b) to provide a practical implementation guide for data screening practices that maximize the quality of data obtained via panel and crowd-sourced samples. To address the goals, two panel samples evaluating vaping and video gaming behaviors were recruited in Canada via Qualtrics and underwent Qualtrics's internal data screening process before being rigorously rescreened by the authors. The results demonstrate that while Qualtrics's paid internal data quality process flags and removes many low-quality participants, there is still a large portion of participants presented by Qualtrics as high-quality that are likely low-quality responses that need to be screened out. The presented methodology provides a rigorous data screening protocol, including step-by-step application, for crowd-sourced samples in addictive behavior research for maximizing data quality. Researchers should be cautious in the use of Qualtrics data for administration of addiction survey research and are encouraged to use additional data screening procedures to maximize data quality. Public Health SignificanceThe findings demonstrate that while Qualtrics's paid internal data quality process flags and remove many low-quality participants, there is still a large portion of participants that should be screened for quality issues by researchers manually. The presented study provides a practical guide for implementing a rigorous data screening procedure to maximize the quality of panel and crowd-sourced survey data.