Continuous assessment of volunteers' satisfaction in clinical research through simplified questionnaires

Abstract

Objectives: In our clinical research center, a 27 multiple-choice and 3 verbatim questions satisfaction questionnaire has been used since 2008 in order to assess the satisfaction of the volunteers participating in our studies. In this work, we aimed at reducing the number of questions of this cumbersome questionnaire while exploring the same dimensions.

Materials and methods: We used k-mean and hierarchical clustering to determine which questions provided the same information or, on the contrary, which questions were able to discriminate a satisfied volunteer from an unsatisfied volunteer.

Results: We were able to reduce our satisfaction questionnaire from 30 questions to 6 closed-ended and 2 open-ended questions, which will allow to save volunteers time while increasing their participation rate.

Conclusion: This questionnaire could be used in other structures practicing clinical research, as part of their quality process.

Keywords: Clinical research; Satisfaction surveys; Volunteers.