Published on Authors of this article:. Background: We describe our experiences with identifying and recruiting Ontario parents through the Internet, primarily, as well as other modes, for participation in focus groups about adding the influenza vaccine to school-based immunization programs. Objective: Our objectives were to assess participation rates with and without incentives and software restrictions. We also plan to examine study response patterns of unique and multiple submissions and assess efficiency of each online advertising mode.
Methods: We used social media, deal forum websites, online classified ads, conventional mass media, and email lists to invite parents of school-aged children from Ontario, Canada to complete an online questionnaire to determine eligibility for focus groups.
We compared responses and paradata when an incentive was provided and there were no software restrictions to the questionnaire Period 1 to a period when only a single submission per Internet protocol IP address ie, software restrictions invoked was permitted and no incentive was provided Period 2. We also compared the median time to complete a questionnaire, response patterns, and percentage of missing data between questionnaires classified as multiple submissions from the same Internet protocol IP address or email versus unique submissions.
Efficiency was calculated as the total number of hours study personnel devoted to an advertising mode divided by the resultant number of unique eligible completed questionnaires. Results: Of submitted questionnaires, Of the remaining questionnaires, In Period 2 vs Period 1, a larger proportion of questionnaires were submitted from Ontario Advertisements posted on RedFlagDeals were the most efficient for recruitment 0.
Conclusions: Using multiple online advertising strategies was effective for recruiting a large sample of participants in a relatively short period time with minimal resources. However, risks such as multiple submissions and potentially fraudulent information need to be considered. In our study, these problems were associated with providing an incentive for responding, and could have been partially avoided by activating restrictive software features for online questionnaires.
