JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

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. Using an example with urban American Indian and Alaska Native young women, we describe a 2-step method for combatting fraudulent participation in online survey research.

Objective:

Using an example with urban American Indian and Alaska Native young women, we describe a 2-step method for combatting fraudulent participation in online survey research.

Methods:

We recruited participants for formative research preparatory to an online randomized control trial of a pre-conceptual health program from February 2019 to August 2020. We describe our initial protocol for preventing fraudulent participation, which was unsuccessful and then the modifications we made to improve the protocol performance, implemented in May 2020. 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:

Using the initial protocol, the project experienced substantial fraudulent attempts at study enrollment, with less than 1% of all screened participants being identified as truly eligible. With the modified protocol, of the 461individuals who completed a screening survey, 381 did not meet eligibility criteria assessed on the survey. Of the 80 that did, 25 (31%) were identified as ineligible via the 2-step protocol. A total of 55 (69%) were identified as eligible and verified in the protocol.

Conclusions:

Fraudulent surveys compromise study integrity, validity of the data, and trust of participant populations. They also deplete scarce research resources, including respondent compensation and personnel time. Our 2-step protocol to prevent online misrepresentations was successful; such protocols are crucial for building trust with vulnerable populations. Clinical Trial: Trial registration number: NCT04376346 (May 5, 2020)