Methodological and ethical considerations in designing an Internet study of quality of life: A discussion paper

Use of the Internet in research is a relatively new phenomenon offering a potentially valuable research resource that, although increasingly used, appears largely untapped in nursing and healthcare more generally. This paper discusses methodological and ethical issues that need consideration when designing an Internet-based study concluding that, in general, online research methods are simply adaptations of traditional methods of data collection. Issues such as the representativeness of the data and ethical concerns are discussed. It considers whether the ethical dilemmas faced by online researchers differ from those faced by those seeking to use other, more ‘traditional’ approaches. Using the example of a study that employed the Internet as a means of distributing questionnaires, this paper shows that this can be an efficient and effective means of gathering data from a geographically dispersed sample. Furthermore, since typewritten data is obtained in the same format from all respondents, the need for transcription and the potential for error are reduced potentially enhancing the quality of any such study.