Surveys - Start to Finish v1 (1)

Surveys
Initial Considerations
REDCap projects can be very simple (a single survey that is one page) or very complex (a multi-site study with several arms and a combination of both surveys and data entry forms for separate groups of participants).
In either case it is crucial to thoughtfully design & plan your REDCap Project in advance, especially if it is going to involve surveys:

Is your survey language IRB approved?
Does your survey already exist in the REDCap shared library?
Will you be sending surveys via a public link, to specific emails or both?
How do you plan to enroll participants in the study?
Will there be follow-up surveys based on specific criteria?
How to you plan to publish the results?
What are your reporting needs?
Do you have multiple surveys that should be completed in a specific order?
Do all participants complete every survey (in a multiple-arm study)
Should you use a survey queue?
Will participants be allowed to go back to change their answers?
Do you want to save partially completed surveys?
To whom should the survey and its results be visible?
Will the study occur over time with multiple surveys sent out at various time intervals?
Are surveys only intended for the record participant, or are there associated surveys for someone related to the record participant? (caregiver, clinician, child, parent)

A thought-out design and an even more thorough testing of your survey study prior to moving to production will greatly enhance the success of your project and avoid unwanted pitfalls

The Process – 10 Simple Steps
This article will guide you through setting up a survey from start to finish. Please reference the other Knowledge Articles for detailed insight in specific aspects of designing a survey.

Create your project and develop your instruments (see Create a REDCap Project) https://utahccts.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/3/topic/adbee3d0-ea62-4c64-bf80-68b6b8a830ca/article/276988272
Enable use of surveys in your project
1. Go to "Project Setup"
  1. In the top box "Main project settings" you'll see the option of Enabling a survey. Click on it (Circled in Red below)
Next click on "Online Designer" (Circled in red below)
2. A table like the one shown below will display. Select "Enable" for every instrument you want to be a survey in your project (circled in red below)
Define Survey Options for each instrument
1. As soon as you click the Enable as Survey button, a page with many options will display. This page will allow you to set various parameters to customize each of your survey instruments:
  1. Survey Instructions: allows you to provide instructions to your participants.
  3. Survey Design Options:
  5. Survey Customization:
    1. Question Numbering
    2. All on one page / One section per page using Section Headers
      1. This is particularly useful setting for long surveys that you may worry about participants "quitting" before finishing the survey. When the participant selects "next page" the data collected on the previous page is saved, even if they do not complete the entire survey.
    3. Required Fields – option to display *must provide value. Note: if there is a long list of required questions the red text can be aesthetically displeasing to participants.
    4. Aggregate Results
    5. Text-to-speech
  6. Survey Access
    1. Expiration date and time
    2. Save and Return Later
    3. Also, ability to return and modify a completed response
  7. Survey Termination Options
    1. Auto-continue on to next survey – link surveys together
    2. Redirect to URL or Survey completion text
    3. Send Confirmation email
      1. Note that in Send Confirmation Email you can attach brochures / PDFs about your study, etc.
        If it is a participant list survey, you have the participant’s email
        If it is a public survey and this “Send Confirmation” feature is enabled, the participant will see a question that says “do you want to receive a confirmation email” and ask for their email. The system will send the confirmation but the email will not be linked to the record.
  8. eConsent Framework (see eConsent Knowledge Article)
  9. Click Save Changes to complete process of customizing each of your survey instruments
Set Automated Invitations:
1. After clicking Save Changes, you are returned to the Online Designer page. New buttons appear next to your instrument:
  1. Survey Settings: Allow you to modify the settings you just made
  2. Automated Invitations
    1. Click on the Automated Invitations button
    2. Follow the 4 steps to define the parameters for the automated survey invitations that will be sent out for the specific survey instrument..
      1. Step 1: Compose Message
      2. Step 2: Specify the Conditions for when the survey invitation will be sent
      3. Step 3: Define timeframe for sending invitation once conditions in Step 2 are met
      4. Step 4: Activate the Auto invite
Define Survey Queue if desired (see Knowledge Article on Survey Queues)
1. Located in Online Designer
2. Allows you to daisy chain multiple surveys together
3. Allows you to send different surveys to different populations (eg male / female, patient/ care giver by placing logic in survey distribution
4. Can split up forms for greater flexibility
  1. Complex studies
  2. Longitudinal studies
5. Don’t need to send email for each survey – chain together
6. Need to set up Survey Queue for each arm
Assign survey order, and assign surveys to events and arms (as needed)
1. This is particularly helpful if you have multiple surveys that should be completed in a specific order, and if you would like the next survey to auto-populate after the previous survey has been completed.
  1. Drag and drop the surveys in the Online Designer to customize their order
  2. Review the survey termination option for "auto continue to next survey" in the survey settings
2. If your project has multiple events (time points) and/or multiple arms (often for groups of participants), you can designate which surveys are completed when, and by who
  1. (insert screen shot steps about designating instruments for events)
Set Email Notification if desired
1. (insert screen shot instructions for this)
Survey Distribution Tools (public survey link or email distribution list)
1. From the toolbar on the left side of the page, select Survey Distribution Tools
2. At the top of the page, select whether you desire a public survey link or to define a participant list
3. 1. Public Survey Link:
    1. Publish to a website or send via email
    2. Anonymous (unless the survey asks for identifying data from the participant) •NOTE: Since this method uses a single survey link for all participants, it allows for the possibility of participants taking the survey multiple times, which may be desired in some cases
  2. Participant List
    1. Sends customized email to participants in list
    2. Participant can complete survey one time
    3. Configurable reminders
    4. Tracks responses
    5. Option to identify responses
    6. Use Survey Invitation Log to view invitations that have been sent or are scheduled to be sent (such as those scheduled via Automated Survey Invitations)
  3. Refer to specific Knowledge Articles for each type of distribution
TEST your survey project
1. It is important to TEST all aspects of your project. Create as many records to test every aspect of the project
  1. If the project is a simple single survey, without branching logic or anything else, 5 cases should be more than sufficient.
  2. If the project is a multi-arm longitudinal study with Automated Survey Invitations, Randomization and Form Render Skip Logic, then you may require upwards of 100 – 150 test cases
2. Remember to identify PHI fields. This is done from the Project Set Up tab:

How Participants Use Surveys / What the User Sees

To see how your survey will appear to your participants, and to test the survey mechanics, during development phase, follow these steps:
1. left menu >
2. add / edit records >
3. create record >
4. select gray circle of desired survey >
5. survey options dropdown >
6. open survey

Unique Considerations Related to Surveys

Order of instruments in a survey
1. Public survey links can only be used for the first instrument on your project. To use it, the first instrument needs to be enabled as a survey (See instructions: Enable Survey. )
2. Auto-numbering is mandatory for the project
Enabling the Survey Specific Email Invitation field within Survey Settings
1. Allows you to override the project level email field for that specific survey instrument. This is useful when you may have a specific survey that should be associated with a participant record, but needs to be completed by someone other than the participant. For example if your participants are patients battling cancer, and you have many surveys for the participants regarding symptoms, hospital visits, and goals, but you'd also like to collect a survey for participants' caregivers regarding caregiver burden, you can create that survey but assign a different email field to send to.
  1. the email of the caregiver would need to be collected prior to this survey, typically in a data collection form, and validated as an email text field (see article on validation)
Designing instruments to be Automated Invitations even if your project is not a survey.
1. If your first instrument is a data gathering instrument about an upcoming seminar, you can design a second instrument as a survey whose purpose is to send automated invitations / reminders to interested attendees. You must capture the attendee's email in the first instrument and set the second instrument as a survey itself. Then in the Automated Invite, create logic that will send the event reminder to the attendee at a designated date / time. You must also enable Designate an email field from the Project Set Up page:
2. In this example, the second instrument will exist as a blank survey instrument. The automated invitation "compose message" section will have default text for a link & URL to the survey, you'll need to delete this default text, since the link/URL would lead the participant to a blank survey. The automated invitation would just be used to schedule a reminder email to participants who meet specific logic from the first instrument (i.e. signed up for an event)
Adding participants after a survey has been distributed:
1. When distributing a survey via an email participant list, ensure all participants' emails are defined before the project is moved to production and the first survey is sent. Often subsequent surveys are emailed based on criteria of completion of the first survey.
Creating anonymous surveys for incentives
1. Make the survey optional non-anonymous (i.e. put a field at the end something like "Please enter your email if you'd like to be entered into a drawing for a $50 gift card as a thank you for participating in this study" Then you can do a drawing and email the winner(s). People who don't want to list their email don't have to.
2. Use branching logic to populate a link to a gift card for every Nth participant. Organize hidden fields that will count # of responses, then create N fields for N # gift cards you'd like to give out, each with a link to a gift card that populates at the end of the survey.
Allow each survey taker to receive a personalized link to the survey
1. Disable auto-numbering for records in your project so you can assign the [record_id] as the unique study ID that will link their REDCap data to their genomic data
2. Create an instrument form (not a survey) as the 1st instrument in the project to collect a "fake" email, label this field [email]
  1. designate an email field for sending surveys (in Project Setup) → select [email] as that field
3. Create your survey instrument that you'd like to distribute via unique link
  1. left menu > designer
  2. after you create the instrument, make sure you click "enable" as a survey
4. create an excel document with the following headers
5. add the ID numbers you'd like in remaining rows of column A (this can be as simple as starting a 1 and continuing until you've reached the # of unique links you want to produce (i.e. the number of participants you're recruiting)
6. add a fake email to every row of column B associated with an ID in column A (for example: test@gmail.com)
7. save the excel document as a .csv file
8. import the data to your REDCap project:
  1. left menu > data import > select csv file > import
9. attain the unique links in your participant list:
  1. left menu > survey distribution tools > participant list > select the desired survey instrument from the dropdown > see individual links for each record here or download all as excel (need screenshot)
Re-using data collection surveys (example: pre and post surveys are almost identical RC-2663)
1. You can create events for re-using data collection instruments using event and branching logic
2. Or you can use "Copy" in "Online Designer" and make modifications to create post survey.
Adding questions to existing surveys
1. Adding a question to the existing survey will not delete any data that has already been collected. Exisiting records will just have a blank for the new question when you export their data.
2. Adding a question to the existing survey will not change the public survey link, so anyone who has the link already but hasn't completed the survey, can still access it both before and after you make the change.
Prevent a person from leaving the survey before they finish filling it out.
1. In the Survey Settings enable the option to click the "Save & Return Later" button to stop the survey and return at a later time to complete it
Minimizing Data Loss
1. For long surveys – consider multiple surveys and group into survey queue, with the auto-start option: surveys will appear to participants as one survey only. Advantages: data will be saved at the completion of each survey; there will be less chance to lose data in case of poor Internet connection
Targeting Surveys to Specific Groups
1. Survey queues may be used as 'branching logic' at a survey level. For example, if there is a set of questions that are specific to a given gender, instead of adding a branching logic to each question, create a survey with this set of questions only and specify the condition in the survey queue e.g. [gender] = "1"
Deleting or Disabling a survey in Survey Settings.
1. There are 2 “delete” buttons for any given project.
  1. 1 is in Online Designer – deletes entire form and data is lost
  2. 1 is in Survey Settings – reverts survey back to a form. Data is still available