Mischievous responders: data quality lessons learned in mental health research

ABSTRACT

Internet recruitment methods for research are rapidly evolving as technology and participant preferences do as well. This brings data security concerns, balanced with respect to persons for research participants. Internet recruitment research strategies are still important given the importance of creating private and accessible pathways for potentially marginalized populations or people experiencing stigmatized mental health conditions to participate in research. This manuscript describes the case of social media recruitment for a mental health and racism study in Fall 2022 that was infiltrated by bots. We contextualize it in the context of data quality literature, with considerations for future directions including strategies for study design and management, and further research questions.

KEYWORDS:

• Bots
• socially responsive research
• research methods
• study design
• crowd-sourced research

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, MB, upon reasonable request.

Ethical statements

The authors have abided by the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct as set out by the APA (http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/) which align with the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct as set out by the BABCP and BPS. This study was approved by the university’s institutional review board (approval number 21.056).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.