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

AIDS Care. 2022 Mar;34(3):397-403. doi: 10.1080/09540121.2021.2008860. Epub 2021 Nov 27.

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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • HIV Infections* / epidemiology
  • HIV Infections* / prevention & control
  • Homosexuality, Male
  • Humans
  • Internet
  • Male
  • Risk-Taking
  • Sexual Behavior
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Unsafe Sex