Healthy
Conditions
Brief summary
The purpose of this study is to test the efficacy of alternative methods to improve survey completion.
Detailed description
Men who have sex with men (MSM) are the risk population most heavily impacted by HIV in the United States by any measure; in 2009, at least 61% of new HIV infections were estimated to have occurred in MSM. MSM are experiencing an increase in HIV transmission that has been occurring since at least 1990, and accelerated in multiple North American and European countries from 2000-2005. The expansion of the HIV epidemic has been proposed to be attributable, in part, to the extent to which the internet has facilitated sexual connectivity among MSM. Researchers have attempted to reach MSM for HIV prevention research and intervention on the internet. In the past 10 years, there has been a proliferation of internet surveys and HIV research studies among men who have sex with men that utilize the internet for data collection and, in some cases, the delivery of HIV prevention content. The development of internet-based interventions has been recently identified as especially promising because of its potential for scalability. However, there are also important limitations to internet-based data collections and prevention studies. The most important of these relate to representativeness and opportunities to introduce bias to data collections and differences in access to and use of internet among different subgroups of MSM. Equally important, although less discussed, are the unique ethical and human research protections challenges posed by online sexual health prevention studies. The investigators will conduct an experiment to improve knowledge of how to conduct internet-based HIV prevention research with MSM in ways that decrease biases in data collections. The design will consist of a randomized controlled trials of MSM recruited online. A total of 1000 MSM will be enrolled to determine how to best improve retention in online surveys.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALMonetary Incentive
$20 Amazon.com gift card
BEHAVIORALAltruistic Incentive
A preliminary statement of the importance of participation, and periodic inspirational messages throughout the length of the survey emphasizing the value to men's health by completing the survey
BEHAVIORALDashboard Incentive
A sample dashboard will compare data subjects enter in their survey to the data already collected from other men who have taken the survey. For the dashboard, men who complete the survey will be shown how their own reported data about certain topics compared to other men's data.
Sponsors
Emory University
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
MALE
Age
18 Years to 34 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* male * aged 18 to 34 years * have had sex with another man in the past 12 months
Exclusion criteria
* female or transgender * younger than 18 years of age * older than 34 years of age * have not had sex with another man in the past 12 months.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Proportion of survey completed before dropping out. | At baseline survey | We expect that the average participant will complete 40 screens of survey in about 45 minutes. Based on historical data, about 75% of participants will complete all screens. Analyses will take a time-to-event approach and hazard of discontinuing survey will be calculated. |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed