Cho Eunji, Lewis Laura F, Broden Arciprete Elizabeth G
Connell School of Nursing, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, United States.
College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, United States.
J Med Internet Res. 2025 Aug 27;27:e68393. doi: 10.2196/68393.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, online recruitment became a critical component of qualitative research in health care 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 populations considered marginalized. Behaviors that researchers may associate with fraudulent participants also appear in the communication patterns of groups considered marginalized, especially when discussing sensitive topics. This similarity could lead to misplaced suspicion, unintentionally disadvantaging populations considered marginalized when they attempt to share their experiences. In this paper, 3 qualitative nursing researchers reflect on their experiences with recruitment and data collection in recent studies and provide recommendations based on their experiences and a review of relevant literature. These include methods for addressing challenges related to potentially fraudulent participants and balancing ethical approaches with justice and inclusivity while preserving research integrity, drawing on existing strategies from previous studies facing similar issues. The paper also identifies unaddressed areas requiring future attention and highlights the importance of promoting inclusivity for diverse populations and populations considered marginalized who may be disproportionately affected by mistrust in participant integrity.
在新冠疫情之后，在线招募成为了医疗保健领域定性研究的一个关键组成部分。然而，针对研究激励措施的欺诈性参与者在健康研究中变得更加普遍，这给研究伦理、数据完整性以及纳入不同患者声音带来了重大问题。虽然定性健康研究旨在倾听并放大患者和社区的声音，但这种欺诈行为会严重影响研究质量，并滋生对参与者的不信任。这个问题在定性研究中尤为关键，在定性研究中，研究人员与参与者之间谨慎的沟通、互动和相互信任是研究过程的标志，尤其是在与被视为边缘化的人群合作时。研究人员可能与欺诈性参与者相关联的行为也出现在被视为边缘化群体的沟通模式中，特别是在讨论敏感话题时。这种相似性可能导致错误的怀疑，在被视为边缘化的人群试图分享他们的经历时无意中对他们不利。在本文中，三位定性护理研究人员反思了他们在近期研究中的招募和数据收集经验，并根据他们的经验以及对相关文献的回顾提出了建议。这些建议包括应对与潜在欺诈性参与者相关挑战的方法，以及在维护研究完整性的同时，在道德方法与公正和包容性之间取得平衡，借鉴以往面临类似问题的研究中的现有策略。本文还确定了需要未来关注的未解决领域，并强调了促进对可能因对参与者诚信的不信任而受到不成比例影响的不同人群和被视为边缘化人群的包容性的重要性。
