Recruiting cisgender female couples for health disparity-focused daily diary research: challenges, successes, and lessons learned

Abstract

ABSTRACT The underlying mechanisms of sexual minority women’s (SMW’s) physical and mental health disparities are not well understood. Relationship factors are particularly understudied, and data are rarely collected from both same-sex female partners. Most research is cross sectional limiting our understanding of day-to-day experiences. This paper describes the feasibility of recruiting a large sample of SMW and their female partners for a disparity-focused daily diary study investigating alcohol use and mental health. A firm specializing in sexual minority market research assisted with recruitment from multiple sources and conducted an initial pre-screening of SMW and their female partners, at least one of whom drank alcohol regularly. A total of 4182 individuals completed the pre-screener, and information for 930 individuals (465 couples) was sent to the research team. Then, 376 individuals (188 couples) completed the study screener, met the inclusion criteria, and were invited to participate. Ultimately, 326 individuals (163 couples) consented and completed baseline. A total of 321 individuals, from 162 couples, began the daily diary portion of the study. Compliance with study procedures was excellent. The use of multiple recruitment sources increased the diversity of the sample. Challenges to recruitment, changes in protocol, and characteristics of the final sample are discussed.RM