A virtual randomized controlled trial of an alcohol-exposed pregnancy prevention mobile app with urban American Indian and Alaska Native young women: Native WYSE CHOICES rationale, design, and methods

Kaufman, Carol E.; Asdigian, Nancy L.; Reed, Nicole D.; Shrestha, Umit; Bull, Sheana; Begay, Rene L.; Shangreau, Carly; Howley, Caitlin Trucksess; Vossberg, Raeann L.; Sarche, Michelle

doi:10.1016/j.cct.2023.107167

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 53 publications

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“…We used social media posts and boosted ads plus email flyers to recruit participants nationally for the formative phase of a virtual randomized control trial (RCT), that is, a study design in which recruitment, data collection, and intervention implementation would be administered fully remote through technology. The RCT was designed to test the effectiveness of a culturally tailored mobile health app to prevent alcohol-exposed pregnancy risk among urban American Indian and Alaska Native young women (for details regarding the overall project, see Kaufman et al [ 49 ]). We recruited participants for this formative study from February 2019 to August 2020.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combating Fraudulent Participation in Urban American Indian and Alaska Native Virtual Health Research: Protocol for Increasing Data Integrity in Online Research (PRIOR)

Reed,

Bull,

Shrestha

et al. 2024

JMIR Res Protoc

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Background While the advantages of using the internet and social media for research recruitment are well documented, the evolving online environment also enhances motivations for misrepresentation to receive incentives or to “troll” research studies. Such fraudulent assaults can compromise data integrity, with substantial losses in project time; money; and especially for vulnerable populations, research trust. With the rapid advent of new technology and ever-evolving social media platforms, it has become easier for misrepresentation to occur within online data collection. This perpetuation can occur by bots or individuals with malintent, but careful planning can help aid in filtering out fraudulent data. Objective Using an example with urban American Indian and Alaska Native young women, this paper aims to describe PRIOR (Protocol for Increasing Data Integrity in Online Research), which is a 2-step integration protocol for combating fraudulent participation in online survey research. Methods From February 2019 to August 2020, we recruited participants for formative research preparatory to an online randomized control trial of a preconceptual health program. First, we described our initial protocol for preventing fraudulent participation, which proved to be unsuccessful. Then, we described modifications we made in May 2020 to improve the protocol performance and the creation of PRIOR. Changes included transferring data collection platforms, collecting embedded geospatial variables, enabling timing features within the screening survey, creating URL links for each method or platform of data collection, and manually confirming potentially eligible participants’ identifying information. Results Before the implementation of PRIOR, the project experienced substantial fraudulent attempts at study enrollment, with less than 1% (n=6) of 1300 screened participants being identified as truly eligible. With the modified protocol, of the 461 individuals who completed a screening survey, 381 did not meet the eligibility criteria assessed on the survey. Of the 80 that did, 25 (31%) were identified as ineligible via PRIOR. A total of 55 (69%) were identified as eligible and verified in the protocol and were enrolled in the formative study. Conclusions Fraudulent surveys compromise study integrity, validity of the data, and trust among participant populations. They also deplete scarce research resources including respondent compensation and personnel time. Our approach of PRIOR to prevent online misrepresentation in data was successful. This paper reviews key elements regarding fraudulent data participation in online research and demonstrates why enhanced protocols to prevent fraudulent data collection are crucial for building trust with vulnerable populations. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04376346; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04376346 ...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%