• Teresa L Hagan, Sarah M Belcher, and Heidi S Donovan.
• Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Electronic address: thagan@mgh.harvard.edu.
• J Pain Symptom Manage. 2017 Sep 1; 54 (3): 368-375.

ContextResearchers administering surveys seek to balance data quality, sources of error, and practical concerns when selecting an administration mode. Rarely are decisions about survey administration based on the background of study participants, although socio-demographic characteristics like age, education, and race may contribute to participants' (non)responses.ObjectivesIn this study, we describe differences in paper- and web-based surveys administered in a national cancer survivor study of women with a history of cancer to compare the ability of each survey administrative mode to provide quality, generalizable data.MethodsWe compared paper- and web-based survey data by socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, missing data rates, scores on primary outcome measure, and administrative costs and time using descriptive statistics, tests of mean group differences, and linear regression.ResultsOur findings indicate that more potentially vulnerable patients preferred paper questionnaires and that data quality, responses, and costs significantly varied by mode and participants' demographic information. We provide targeted suggestions for researchers conducting survey research to reduce survey error and increase generalizability of study results to the patient population of interest.ConclusionResearchers must carefully weigh the pros and cons of survey administration modes to ensure a representative sample and high-quality data.Copyright © 2017 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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