Internet-based surveys: relevance, methodological considerations and troubleshooting strategies

Sir Internet-based surveys have steadily gained popularity with researchers because of their myriad advantages such as ability to reach a larger pool of potential participants within a shorter period of time (vis-a-vis face-to-face surveys), study subjects who maybe geographically dispersed or otherwise difficult to access and efficiency of data management and collation.1 2 This is in addition to obvious reasons such as convenience, relative inexpensiveness and user-friendly features such as comfortable pace and enhanced sense of participant control. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and dwindling opportunities for face-to-face data collection, internet-based tools offer a powerful alternative to rapidly collect data. Moreover, they could be useful tools from a public health perspective to track public perceptions, myths and misconceptions3 in times of disaster. Many methodological issues confront a prospective researcher while designing online questionnaires/surveys. A few of them and some corresponding suggestions for troubleshooting are outlined below: 1. Web or mailed questionnaire?—A meta-analysis of 39 studies4 concluded that response rates to mail surveys are, in general, higher than web surveys. Interestingly, two important factors underlying this variation were the type of respondents and medium of follow-up reminders. While college students were more responsive to web surveys, physicians and laypersons were found to be more receptive to mail surveys. Further, follow-up reminders were more effective when given by mail, probably owing to greater personalisation, than the web. Recently, a hybrid method called web-push surveys, wherein, initial and subsequent follow-up contacts are made by mail to request a response by web was found to be a parsimonious method to elicit responses.5 However, results …