Factors affecting participation in web-based Alzheimer's questionnaire surveys: Lessons from the Japanese trial-ready cohort.

BACKGROUND

Web-based approach is considered helpful for the research focused on screening and early detection of individuals with preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD); obtaining sufficient responses is critical to the success of such online study.

OBJECTIVES

This study examined factors influencing response rates to an online survey about disease-modifying drugs for AD among participants in the Japanese Trial-Ready Cohort (J-TRC) webstudy.

DESIGN

This was a retrospective observational study.

SETTINGS: Online survey in Japan using Google Forms.

PARTICIPANTS

We enrolled the eligible J-TRC webstudy participants who had registered before September 2023. We sent them an invitation e-mail including a questionnaire web address on November-December 2023, in order to conduct an online survey regarding their perceptions of disease-modifying therapy drug that was approved in July 2023, Japan.

MEASUREMENTS: We analyzed the impact of mailed day of the week (DOW), participant gender, age, employment status, and educational background with/without response to the invitation, quantified by the odds ratio of response.

RESULTS

Among approximately 10,400 J-TRC web study participants who sent invitation emails, the overall response rate was approximately 20 %, without significant influence depending on the DOW when the survey invitation was sent. Individuals who were older (50s-70s), retired, or had higher education levels were significantly more likely to respond, regardless of the DOW. Differences in response rates by sex/gender were observed, but were largely influenced by the employment status.

CONCLUSIONS

In order to improve response rates and enhance data quality, these findings provide valuable insights for optimizing the design of future online studies/surveys in the field of AD and dementia, particularly for targeting cognitively unimpaired middle-aged and older populations.