Integrating a web-based survey application into Qualtrics to collect risk location data for HIV prevention research

ABSTRACT

Aspects of the physical and social environment play an important role in shaping HIV-related risk/prevention behaviors and access to prevention and treatment services. Here, we describe the feasibility of integrating a web-based survey application to collect risk locations into Qualtrics and compare this approach with a JavaScript-based alternative. Between 2017 and 2018, we enrolled 29 persons living with HIV in Boston Massachusetts to complete an interviewer-administered questionnaire using Qualtrics. Surveys collected demographics; sex/drug use risk behaviors; locations where participants met sex partners, had condomless sex, attended group sex events, and shared a syringe or injection equipment with someone else (up to 10 locations each); and the locations where participants (a) had sex with each sex partner (past 6 months) and (b) used drugs with each drug use partner (past 6 months). Location data were collected using embedded links to an encrypted web-based survey application. Overall, participants provided valid coordinates 93% of the time; when an exact location was not provided, a neighborhood was provided instead, resulting in little missing data. Our findings suggest that this web-based data collection tool (alone or with embedded links in Qualtrics) is a feasible and secure option for collecting risk location data.

Disclosure Statement

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

Ethics approval

The research protocol and all study materials were approved by the Boston University Medical Campus Institutional Review Board. We also obtained a Federal Certificate of Confidentiality from the National Institutes of Health.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under Grant R21 AI131979 to investigator Abby E. Rudolph. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH. Any findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of the organizations or agencies that provided support for this project.