Cargando…

Older adults’ motivations to participate or not in epidemiological research. Qualitative inquiry on a study into dementia in Switzerland

INTRODUCTION: High participation in epidemiological studies is crucial for both external and internal validity. Because response rates have declined in recent years, there is an increasing need to understand the drivers and the barriers to research participation. This study aims to uncover the motiv...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Fiordelli, Maddalena, Fadda, Marta, Amati, Rebecca, Albanese, Emiliano
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7880484/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33577607
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247141
_version_ 1783650713323175936
author Fiordelli, Maddalena
Fadda, Marta
Amati, Rebecca
Albanese, Emiliano
author_facet Fiordelli, Maddalena
Fadda, Marta
Amati, Rebecca
Albanese, Emiliano
author_sort Fiordelli, Maddalena
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: High participation in epidemiological studies is crucial for both external and internal validity. Because response rates have declined in recent years, there is an increasing need to understand the drivers and the barriers to research participation. This study aims to uncover the motivations in favour and against participation of older adults to an epidemiological study on health and dementia. METHODS: Twenty-two older adults, who already took part to the preliminary phase of an epidemiological study in Switzerland, agreed to participate to semi-structured, face-to- face interviews. An experienced researcher carried out all interviews in a quiet place of choice of the interviewee either at their domicile or the university, between November 2019 and January 2020. The interviews were audio and video taped, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analysed by two independent researchers. RESULTS: We identified three main themes for the motivations in favour of participation (i.e. personal, related to the outcomes of research, and altruistic motivations), and we highlighted subthemes for each theme (e.g. personal motivations: curiosity; civic engagement; interest in the topic; trust in science; everyone counts; openness; play the game). Motivations against participation reflected the first two themes, while there was no counterpart for altruistic motivations. CONCLUSIONS: Our thematic analysis revealed that older adults hold specular motivations in favour and against participation to research. Studying jointly motivations in favour and against provides information for recruitment strategies and to overcome barriers to participation, respectively. Participatory action research can inform the design and conduction of and should precede epidemiological studies in older adults, and can potentially contribute to attain high response rates.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7880484
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-78804842021-02-19 Older adults’ motivations to participate or not in epidemiological research. Qualitative inquiry on a study into dementia in Switzerland Fiordelli, Maddalena Fadda, Marta Amati, Rebecca Albanese, Emiliano PLoS One Research Article INTRODUCTION: High participation in epidemiological studies is crucial for both external and internal validity. Because response rates have declined in recent years, there is an increasing need to understand the drivers and the barriers to research participation. This study aims to uncover the motivations in favour and against participation of older adults to an epidemiological study on health and dementia. METHODS: Twenty-two older adults, who already took part to the preliminary phase of an epidemiological study in Switzerland, agreed to participate to semi-structured, face-to- face interviews. An experienced researcher carried out all interviews in a quiet place of choice of the interviewee either at their domicile or the university, between November 2019 and January 2020. The interviews were audio and video taped, transcribed verbatim, and thematically analysed by two independent researchers. RESULTS: We identified three main themes for the motivations in favour of participation (i.e. personal, related to the outcomes of research, and altruistic motivations), and we highlighted subthemes for each theme (e.g. personal motivations: curiosity; civic engagement; interest in the topic; trust in science; everyone counts; openness; play the game). Motivations against participation reflected the first two themes, while there was no counterpart for altruistic motivations. CONCLUSIONS: Our thematic analysis revealed that older adults hold specular motivations in favour and against participation to research. Studying jointly motivations in favour and against provides information for recruitment strategies and to overcome barriers to participation, respectively. Participatory action research can inform the design and conduction of and should precede epidemiological studies in older adults, and can potentially contribute to attain high response rates. Public Library of Science 2021-02-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7880484/ /pubmed/33577607 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247141 Text en © 2021 Fiordelli et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Fiordelli, Maddalena
Fadda, Marta
Amati, Rebecca
Albanese, Emiliano
Older adults’ motivations to participate or not in epidemiological research. Qualitative inquiry on a study into dementia in Switzerland
title Older adults’ motivations to participate or not in epidemiological research. Qualitative inquiry on a study into dementia in Switzerland
title_full Older adults’ motivations to participate or not in epidemiological research. Qualitative inquiry on a study into dementia in Switzerland
title_fullStr Older adults’ motivations to participate or not in epidemiological research. Qualitative inquiry on a study into dementia in Switzerland
title_full_unstemmed Older adults’ motivations to participate or not in epidemiological research. Qualitative inquiry on a study into dementia in Switzerland
title_short Older adults’ motivations to participate or not in epidemiological research. Qualitative inquiry on a study into dementia in Switzerland
title_sort older adults’ motivations to participate or not in epidemiological research. qualitative inquiry on a study into dementia in switzerland
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7880484/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33577607
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247141
work_keys_str_mv AT fiordellimaddalena olderadultsmotivationstoparticipateornotinepidemiologicalresearchqualitativeinquiryonastudyintodementiainswitzerland
AT faddamarta olderadultsmotivationstoparticipateornotinepidemiologicalresearchqualitativeinquiryonastudyintodementiainswitzerland
AT amatirebecca olderadultsmotivationstoparticipateornotinepidemiologicalresearchqualitativeinquiryonastudyintodementiainswitzerland
AT albaneseemiliano olderadultsmotivationstoparticipateornotinepidemiologicalresearchqualitativeinquiryonastudyintodementiainswitzerland