key: cord-0816215-o7a40i6q
authors: Burke, Therese; Patching, Joanna
title: Mobile Methods: Altering research data collection methods during COVID-19 and the unexpected benefits
date: 2020-08-11
journal: Collegian
DOI: 10.1016/j.colegn.2020.08.001
sha: a9185b231ced13bb5d9f1b727be762e831c1d7b2
doc_id: 816215
cord_uid: o7a40i6q

nan

We wish to share our recent experiences of adapting research methods during the time of the Corona virus disease 2019 pandemic in order to meet study deadlines and satisfactorily answer the research question. After planning a postdoctoral study for 18 months, gaining HREC approval and commencing the study in January 2020, in March the world changed almost overnight. COVID-19 responses within Australia and New Zealand (NZ) made the original study methods impossible.

How could things be amended to ensure a successful study with comparable outcomes within the same time frame?

This mixed methods research study aimed to define the role of the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Nurse in Australia and NZ in two study phases. Phase 1 took place between January and February 2020 and analysis of this data informed phase 2 of the study.

Phase 2 was designed as the qualitative component of the research, the original plan was for individual semi-structured interviews between the investigator and participants face-to-face. Phase 1 was completed successfully prior to COVID-19 restrictions, but just as phase 2 was to begin, travel restrictions (New South Wales Health, 2020) came into place in Australia and NZ which threatened the progress of the study.

Face-to-face interviews were viewed as the best way to gain the rapport and trust necessary to uncover as much as possible about the unexplored role of the MS Nurse. We felt that to explore the role deeply, we also needed to assess body language and other non-verbal cues and that face-to-face interviews were necessary to capture this important additional information, which can be at risk of being missed using online data collection methods. The possibility of Skype interviews was built into the study design, but only in the case of extremely distant or impractical travel. It was not an option we thought we would use except for the rare case where it was needed. We planned to conduct interviews around seminars, meetings and J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f conferences in order to keep costs down and to access as many MS Nurses as possible.

With the announcement of the travel restrictions within Australia and NZ (New South Wales Health, 2020), we were disappointed and wondered if the study could proceed. How could we go about doing the study without the much-needed face to face interviews to capture the essence of MS nursing? One option was to postpone the study until later in the year or possibly 2021, but with dedicated time off work already in progress, this was not an option that could be taken at that time.

After deliberation, we applied for an amendment to our original ethics application to change face-to-face interviews to Skype and Zoom interviews as the method for all data collection. We had to consider participant confidentiality to ensure privacy and we were also wary of known security issues with the platforms, such as hacking and viewing by uninvited participants. Over the month of April new security features were added to Zoom, including locked meetings, waiting rooms and mandatory password protection for each meeting, which made Zoom a popular choice with both investigators and participants. Additionally, we made the decision to use our own Dictaphone to audiotape the interviews rather than using the recording functionality on the platforms as an additional measure of security. This was because platform security was still being updated to ensure end-to-end encryption during this time and we wanted the participants to feel confident and safe with our choices. Ethics approval to use the platforms with the planned security measures was expedited and granted within 24 hours. Despite our trepidation about how the interviews would feel in the virtual world, we commenced recruitment and began phase 2.

Originally, we had planned for a response rate to progress to interviews of about 15% of the MS Nurse population in Australia and NZ, representing about 11-13 J o u r n a l P r e -p r o o f participants. The interviews were advertised to take about an hour, not an inconsequential amount of time. However, we managed to recruit 25 participants, approximately 31% of the known MS Nurse population in the region. It is our hypothesis that we recruited so well because MS Nurses were working from home or doing telehealth during this period and they could fit the interviews into their workday or after work. We also believe that the ease of using virtual platforms also encouraged recruitment and aided the high response rate. Rapport was achieved during the online interviews. Participants demonstrated warmth, appeared connected and provided open discussion with rich, deep insights. We are confident that this rich data will provide a platform for important and significant findings in response to the research question.

Like many areas that COVID-19 has affected, the possibility of doing things differently in the future has been unveiled, potentially reducing research study costs, investigator and participant time and opening up new avenues for study interviews.

The study has been completed well ahead of time and at very low cost. Additionally, participants reported that the virtual platforms made study participation more convenient for them, enabling interviews at any time that suited them, including after hours. As investigators, virtual platforms opened up additional working hours with no travel time and our initial concerns about not gaining insightful data and possible difficulty building a rapport on virtual platforms were unfounded. We would highly recommend considering these platforms in qualitative nursing research.

There are no conflicts of interest identified.

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