Fielding the research participant perception survey to evaluate a culturally tailored Latinx cohort study

Introduction: Latinx populations are underrepresented in clinical research. Asking Latinx research participants about their research experiences, barriers, and facilitators could help to improve research participation for these populations.

Methods: The Salud Estres y Resilencia (SER) Hispano cohort study is a longitudinal cohort study of young adult Latinx immigrants whose design and conduct were tailored for their study population. We administered the Research Participant Perception Survey (RPPS) to SER Hispano participants to assess their experiences in the study. We describe overall results from the RPPS and compare results of surveys administered to SER Hispano participants via email versus telephone.

Results: Of 340 participants who were contacted with the RPPS, 142 (42%) responded. Among respondents, 53 (37%) responded by initial email contact; and 89 (63%) responded by subsequent phone contact. The majority of respondents were between 35 and 44 years of age (54%), female (76%), and of Cuban origin (50%). Overall, research participants expressed high satisfaction with their research experience; 84% stated that they would "definitely" recommend research participation to friends and family, with no significant difference by method of survey administration (P = 0.45). The most common factor that was chosen that would influence future research participation was having summary results of the research shared with them (72%).

Conclusion: We found that culturally tailored studies can be good experiences for Latinx research participants; and we found that use of the RPPS can be administered successfully, particularly when administered by more than one method, including telephone, to evaluate and to improve research experiences for this population.