Does Internet Data Collection Improve Cohort Retention?

One of the biggest challenges of conducting research where the investigators follow people over a long period of time is keeping the participants involved. One of way that investigators may be able to improve participant involvement in research is to give participants the opportunity to complete their questionnaires online. Here's how the investigators think the Internet data collection system will help to keep participants involved and ultimately help to answer important questions about the effects of nutrition during pregnancy: 1. It will allow investigators to present complicated questionnaires in a way that doesn't confuse participants. For example, instead of telling participants to skip the remainder of a question if they answered no to the first part of the question, the ePRO system does the skipping for them. The result is less confusion, fewer questions to read, and less of the participant's time. 2. It provides a convenient way for participants to keep track of where to find the questionnaire, and how much they have already completed. Participants sometimes don't have time to answer all of the investigator's questions in one sitting. The ePRO system keeps track of how much participants have already done and it's ready to keep going whenever the participant has time. It also avoids the common problem of losing the questionnaires to the household paperwork pile, or worse to the recycling bin. 3. It provides timely reminders to participants. Study participants, and especially new moms, are busy and they forget to complete the questionnaires. The ePRO system can provide timely reminders encouraging participants to respond. 4. It helps participants complete the questionnaires accurately. The ePRO system has an automatic error detection ability that will alert participants to any questions they missed or completed incorrectly. Finding ways to keep participants involved in research is something that all researchers are concerned about, and ultimately it's a co