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Web based research in sexual medicine: a position statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine

BACKGROUND: Although the use of the Web has brought major advances in every step of the research process, this also comes with several methodological challenges. AIM: The article presents the European Society for Sexual Medicine's position statements on key methodological concerns relative to W...

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Autores principales: Kirana, Paraskevi-Sofia, Gudeloglu, Ahmet, Sansone, Andrea, Sokolakis, Ioannis
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10324026/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37426312
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sexmed/qfad032
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author Kirana, Paraskevi-Sofia
Gudeloglu, Ahmet
Sansone, Andrea
Sokolakis, Ioannis
author_facet Kirana, Paraskevi-Sofia
Gudeloglu, Ahmet
Sansone, Andrea
Sokolakis, Ioannis
author_sort Kirana, Paraskevi-Sofia
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Although the use of the Web has brought major advances in every step of the research process, this also comes with several methodological challenges. AIM: The article presents the European Society for Sexual Medicine's position statements on key methodological concerns relative to Web-based research in sexual medicine. METHODS: The authors conducted a systematic scoping review of articles using Web-based research methods in sexual medicine. For the creation of the statements, the authors processed the data from the methodology of the studies and formulated the final statements reaching 100% agreement in the group. OUTCOMES: European Society for Sexual Medicine statements were provided on the following domains: definition of the population of interest, selection of the population of interest, data collection quality, response rate, self-reported questionnaire, consent, and legal obligations. RESULTS: Researchers should justify the relevance of the Internet population to the population of interest; should clearly describe how they identified study participants; should select and employ specific measures to avoid hoax; should explicitly describe the process of calculation of response and completion rates as well as the relative implications; should validate traditional sexual health questionnaires for online and, if possible, multilingual use; should not ignore consent in Web-based research; and need to be knowledgeable of the technical measures and legal obligations to protect anonymity. IMPLICATIONS: Researchers are advised to include trained computer scientists in their group, have a good understanding of their legal obligations as to collecting, storing and disseminating personal data, and design their studies by taking into account the challenges of Web-based research. STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS: The heterogeneity of the included studies and methodological low quality of most of them was a limitation, which also shows the importance of this study and the need for guidelines regarding Web-based research. CONCLUSION: Large uncontrolled samples could be a threat to the quality of the studies and increase bias if researchers are not mindful of the methodological challenges they would need to account for.
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spelling pubmed-103240262023-07-07 Web based research in sexual medicine: a position statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine Kirana, Paraskevi-Sofia Gudeloglu, Ahmet Sansone, Andrea Sokolakis, Ioannis Sex Med Review BACKGROUND: Although the use of the Web has brought major advances in every step of the research process, this also comes with several methodological challenges. AIM: The article presents the European Society for Sexual Medicine's position statements on key methodological concerns relative to Web-based research in sexual medicine. METHODS: The authors conducted a systematic scoping review of articles using Web-based research methods in sexual medicine. For the creation of the statements, the authors processed the data from the methodology of the studies and formulated the final statements reaching 100% agreement in the group. OUTCOMES: European Society for Sexual Medicine statements were provided on the following domains: definition of the population of interest, selection of the population of interest, data collection quality, response rate, self-reported questionnaire, consent, and legal obligations. RESULTS: Researchers should justify the relevance of the Internet population to the population of interest; should clearly describe how they identified study participants; should select and employ specific measures to avoid hoax; should explicitly describe the process of calculation of response and completion rates as well as the relative implications; should validate traditional sexual health questionnaires for online and, if possible, multilingual use; should not ignore consent in Web-based research; and need to be knowledgeable of the technical measures and legal obligations to protect anonymity. IMPLICATIONS: Researchers are advised to include trained computer scientists in their group, have a good understanding of their legal obligations as to collecting, storing and disseminating personal data, and design their studies by taking into account the challenges of Web-based research. STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS: The heterogeneity of the included studies and methodological low quality of most of them was a limitation, which also shows the importance of this study and the need for guidelines regarding Web-based research. CONCLUSION: Large uncontrolled samples could be a threat to the quality of the studies and increase bias if researchers are not mindful of the methodological challenges they would need to account for. Oxford University Press 2023-07-05 /pmc/articles/PMC10324026/ /pubmed/37426312 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sexmed/qfad032 Text en © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The International Society of Sexual Medicine https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review
Kirana, Paraskevi-Sofia
Gudeloglu, Ahmet
Sansone, Andrea
Sokolakis, Ioannis
Web based research in sexual medicine: a position statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine
title Web based research in sexual medicine: a position statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine
title_full Web based research in sexual medicine: a position statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine
title_fullStr Web based research in sexual medicine: a position statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine
title_full_unstemmed Web based research in sexual medicine: a position statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine
title_short Web based research in sexual medicine: a position statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine
title_sort web based research in sexual medicine: a position statement of the european society for sexual medicine
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10324026/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37426312
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sexmed/qfad032
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