Recruiting Participants With Low Socioeconomic Status in the NutriQuébec Study: Using Focus Groups to Explore Their Beliefs, Preferences and Concerns
Recruiting Participants With Low Socioeconomic Status in the NutriQuébec Study: Using Focus Groups to Explore Their Beliefs, Preferences and Concerns
NutriQuébec is a web-based prospective cohort study aiming to monitor and analyse the evolution of Québec population eating habits through annual questionnaires. The recruitment and retention of participants with low socioeconomic status (SES), known to be more hard to reach and recruit into health studies, will be major challenges in obtaining a representative sample of the Québec population.
The purpose of this study is to identify the behavioural, normative and control beliefs of individuals from low SES regarding a hypothetical participation in the NutriQuébec study. Their preferences regarding recruitment methods as well as their concerns about the security, use and share of data will also be identified.
Four moderator facilitated focus groups will be conducted in community centres (n=28 participants). The focus groups will be recorded, transcribed and coded by two coders using NVivo.
Four focus groups will be conducted in three community centers (n=6 to 8 participants/group; n=28 participants). First, all participants will read and sign the consent form. They will also complete a sociodemographic questionnaire. Then, the moderator will conduct the discussion using a semi-structured interview guide, based on the construct of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The interview guide has been developed to identify the beliefs that determine the participants' attitudes (advantages/disadvantages), subjective norms (approval/disapproval of important others) and perceived behavioral control (facilitators/barriers) related to a hypothetical participation in the NutriQuébec study. The participants will also be questioned about their preferences regarding the recruitment as well as their concerns about the security, use and share of data. The focus groups will be recorded and transcribed. Two coders will perform the codification independently using NVivo 10.
Inclusion Criteria:
Exclusion Criteria:
None