Dear all,
My views are definitely in agreement with Bruce.
I certainly see the convenience of a participants registry BUT I think that
there would be far too much bias with such data.
Use of a participant registry might be helpful in the very early stages of
designing a project i.e. to liase with people about meanings of questions
for designing an instrument to be used in a pilot study. At these very early
stages, most people do not want to discuss representativeness and
generalisation. However, I would aim to target people who would use the
instrument. In addition, I would rather target people who are unfamiliar
with research design and implementation so as to avoid bias. Furthermore,
the sheer fact that some people may join a participant registry instantly
suggests that such people are in some way different from those who do not
belong or wish to join the registry.
Therefore, use of a participant registry raises too many controversial
issues. Perhaps, a good idea in the initial stages of designing a project.
Kind regards,
Diana Rofail, MSc
Researcher
Health Services Research Department
Institute of Psychiatry
London
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