Background: The growth in the number of patients seeking health information online has given rise to new direct-to-patient research methods, including direct patient recruitment and study conduct without use of physician sites. While such patient-centric designs offer time and cost efficiencies, the absence of physician-reported data is a key concern, with potential impact on both scientific rigor and operational feasibility. Objective: To (1) gain insight into the viability of collecting...

Background: Tobacco cessation among Latinos is a public health priority in the United States, particularly given the relatively high growth of this population segment. Although a substantial percentage of American Latinos use the Internet, they have not engaged in Web-based cessation programs as readily as other racial/ethnic subgroups. A lack of culturally specific advertising efforts may partly explain this disparity. Objective: Phase I of this study focused on the development of four...

Background: Google AdWords are increasingly used to recruit people into research studies and clinical services. They offer the potential to recruit from targeted control areas in cluster randomized controlled trials (RCTs), but little is known about the feasibility of accurately targeting ads by location and comparing with control areas. Objective: To examine the accuracy and contamination of control areas by a location-targeted online intervention using Google AdWords in a pilot cluster RCT....

Background: Effective communication of public health messages is a key strategy for health promotion by public health agencies. Creating effective health promotion materials requires careful message design and feedback from representatives of target populations. This is particularly true when the target audiences are hard to reach as limited English proficiency groups. Traditional methods of soliciting feedback—such as focus groups and convenience sample interviews—are expensive and time...

Background: In health care, the use of physical parameters to monitor physical disease progress is common. In mental health care, the periodic measurement of a client’s functioning during treatment, or routine outcome monitoring, has recently become important. Online delivery of questionnaires has the potential to reduce clinicians’ resistance to the implementation of routine outcome monitoring. Online delivery enables clinicians to receive results on a questionnaire in a graphic...

Background: The Web offers unprecedented access to the experience of people with dementia and their care partners, but data gathered online need to be validated to be useful. Objective: To test the construct validity of an informant Web-based data collection to assess dementia symptoms in relation to the 15-point Dependence Scale (DS). Methods: In an online survey posted on the DementiaGuide website, care partners of people with dementia built individualized profiles from the 60-item...

Background: Studies of tobacco use and other health behaviors have reported great challenges in recruiting young adults. Social media is widely used by young adults in the United States and represents a potentially fast, affordable method of recruiting study participants for survey research. Objective: The present study examined Facebook as a mechanism to reach and survey young adults about tobacco and other substance use. Methods: Participants were cigarette users, age 18-25 years old,...

Background: Recruitment of young people for health research by traditional methods has become more expensive and challenging over recent decades. The Internet presents an opportunity for innovative recruitment modalities. Objective: To assess the feasibility of recruiting young females using targeted advertising on the social networking site Facebook. Methods: We placed an advertisement on Facebook from May to September 2010, inviting 16- to 25-year-old females from Victoria, Australia, to...

Background: The majority of Internet-mediated studies use measures developed as paper-and-pencil measures or face-to-face-delivered material. Previous research suggests that the equivalence between online and offline measures must be demonstrated rather than assumed. Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the equivalence 4 measures completed in an online or offline setting. Methods: A sample of students (n = 1969) was randomly assigned to complete 4 popular scales (the SF-12v2,...

Background: There has been limited study of factors influencing response rates and attrition in online research. Online experiments were nested within the pilot (study 1, n = 3780) and main trial (study 2, n = 2667) phases of an evaluation of a Web-based intervention for hazardous drinkers: the Down Your Drink randomized controlled trial (DYD-RCT). Objectives: The objective was to determine whether differences in the length and relevance of questionnaires can impact upon loss to follow-up in...

Background: Web-based questionnaires have become increasingly popular in health research. However, reported response rates vary and response bias may be introduced. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether sending a mixed invitation (paper-based together with Web-based questionnaire) rather than a Web-only invitation (Web-based questionnaire only) results in higher response and participation rates for female childhood cancer survivors filling out a questionnaire on fertility...

Background: The Internet is increasingly considered to be an efficient medium for assessing the quality of health care seen from the patients’ perspective. Potential benefits of Internet surveys such as time efficiency, reduced effort, and lower costs should be balanced against potential weaknesses such as low response rates and accessibility for only a subset of potential participants. Combining an Internet questionnaire with a traditional paper follow-up questionnaire (mixed-mode...

Background: Early detection of symptoms arising from exposure to pathogens, harmful substances, or environmental changes is required for timely intervention. The administration of Web-based questionnaires is a potential method for collecting information from a sample population. Objective: The objective of our study was to develop a Web-based daily questionnaire for health (WDQH) for symptomatic surveillance. Methods: We adopted two different survey methods to develop the WDQH: an Internet...

Background: Many hospitals have adopted mobile nursing carts that can be easily rolled up to a patient’s bedside to access charts and help nurses perform their rounds. However, few papers have reported data regarding the use of wireless computers on wheels (COW) at patients’ bedsides to collect questionnaire-based information of their perception of hospitalization on discharge from the hospital. Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative efficiency of...

Background: In the past 10 years, the Internet has emerged as a venue for men who have sex with men (MSM) to meet sex partners. Because online sex seeking has increased among MSM, Internet-based human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention interventions are of interest. However, few online studies to date have demonstrated an ability to retain study participants, specifically MSM of color, in longitudinal online studies. Objective: The current analysis examines data from a 3-month online...

Background: The Internet has become an increasingly popular venue for men who have sex with men (MSM) to meet potential sex partners. Given this rapid increase in online sex-seeking among MSM, Internet-based interventions represent an important HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) prevention strategy. Unfortunately, black and Hispanic MSM, who are disproportionately impacted by the HIV epidemic in the United States, have been underrepresented in online research studies. Objective: Our...