Survey Response Rates to a Self-Initiated Longitudinal Survey Accessed by QR Code in Six Different Regions of the United States

OBJECTIVE A quick response (QR) code allows rapid access to an online survey via a smart phone and may improve response rates for web-based surveys. We report the response rates for a QR code based, self-initiated longitudinal survey of opioid use and pain scores following hospital discharge in pediatric surgical patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS All parents of pediatric patients having surgery at one of six pediatric medical facilities were asked to participate in the study from October 5, 2020 until July 15, 2021. Those who chose to participate accessed the initial Enrollment Survey using a QR code on a handout provided. The next day they received an emailed link to a daily survey until their child was not requiring opioids and had pain scores less than 4 for the previous 48 hours RESULTS A total of 1,759 families were asked to participate in the study. The parents of 44 patients completed the initial Enrollment survey by accessing the QR code (response rate 2.5%) Of those who completed the initial survey, 67% were lost to follow-up during the survey series. DISCUSSION We found an extremely low response rate for a self-initiated survey accessed by QR code. We found a drop in response rate with each successive daily email based survey and the loss of the majority of the initial participants by the end of the survey series. CONCLUSION We recommend using alternative modalities (informed consent, telephone call, weekly surveys) for initiating and delivering surveys to improve response rates for similarly designed studies.