JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

After the COVID-19 pandemic, online recruitment became a critical component of qualitative research in healthcare fields. However, fraudulent participants targeting research incentives have become more prevalent in health studies, raising significant issues for research ethics, data integrity, and the inclusion of diverse patient voices. While qualitative health research aims to listen to and amplify patients’ and communities’ voices, such fraud can severely impact research quality and foster mistrust toward participants. This issue is particularly critical in qualitative studies, where careful communication, engagement, and mutual trust between researchers and participants are hallmarks of the research process, especially when working with marginalized populations. Behaviors that researchers may associate with fraudulent participants also appear in the communication patterns of marginalized groups, especially when discussing sensitive topics. This similarity could lead to misplaced suspicion, unintentionally disadvantaging marginalized populations when they attempt to share their experiences. In this paper, three qualitative nursing researchers reflect on their experiences with recruitment and data collection in recent studies, including methods to address challenges with potentially fraudulent participants, existing strategies from prior studies facing similar issues, unaddressed areas requiring future attention, and ways to promote inclusivity for diverse and marginalized populations who may be disproportionately affected by mistrust in participant integrity.