{"doi":"10.2196/73972","title":"Smartphone App–Based Survey Deployment Patterns and Longitudinal Response Rate: Randomized Controlled Trial","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Survey fatigue is a common challenge in longitudinal studies, particularly when using smartphone apps to collect survey data. Evidence-based strategies are needed to maintain longitudinal response rates. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the effect of a more frequent smartphone-administered survey deployment strategy with smaller survey batches on participant response rates over an extended period. METHODS: We conducted a randomized controlled trial (NCT04752657) embedded in the electronic Framingham Heart Study cohorts between June 2021 and December 2023. Participants were randomly allocated to receive a full set of surveys every 4 weeks (control group) or half of the survey set biweekly, such that the full set is completed every 4 weeks (experimental group). Randomization was stratified by age (≤75 y vs >75 y) and phone type (Android vs iPhone). Married couples were assigned to the same group using a blocked randomization approach. The primary outcome was the proportion of surveys returned per participant assessed longitudinally across four periods (baseline to wk 8, wk 8-16, wk 16-24, and wk 24-32), with 19, 17, 16, and 15 unique surveys deployed, respectively. We used mixed-effects regression models with random intercepts to compare the repeated outcome between groups. Stratified analyses by age and sex were performed. RESULTS: Among 492 participants (mean age 74, SD 6.3 y; 58%, n=284 women, 84%, n=413 non-Hispanic White), there was evidence that the experimental group had higher response rates over time compared to the control group (P=.003 for interaction between deployment pattern and time). Both groups showed similar proportions of surveys returned during the first period (75% vs 76%). The experimental group had higher response rates than the control group in subsequent periods (70% vs 67% in wk 8-16, 64% vs 59% in wk 16-24, and 58% vs 50% in wk 24-32). The proportion of participants not returning any surveys increased from 3% to 38% in the control group compared to 1% to 28% in the experimental group across the four time periods. Stratified analyses revealed that among younger participants (≤75 y), the experimental group showed 12% higher survey response rates compared to the control group in the final period, while the difference was minimal among older participants (>75 years). The effect of the deployment pattern was similar for men and women. Three-way interaction analyses revealed no significant differences in the deployment pattern effect over time by age group (P=.95) or sex (P=.65). CONCLUSIONS: Administering half of the surveys every 2 weeks, as compared to all surveys every 4 weeks, was associated with higher maintained longitudinal survey response rates. This strategy may help mitigate survey fatigue and improve data quality in digital health studies. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04752657; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04752657.","journal":"Journal of Medical Internet Research","year":2025,"id":577532,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9601,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"ClinicalTrials.gov":["NCT04752657"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":743700,"name":"Jian Rong","orcid":"0000-0002-6911-1548","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1147599,"name":"Xuzhi Wang","orcid":"0000-0003-4326-691X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1110082,"name":"Eric Schramm","orcid":"0000-0001-9458-4585","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":832106,"name":"Chathurangi H Pathiravasan","orcid":"0000-0003-2170-1247","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":755926,"name":"Belinda Borrelli","orcid":"0000-0002-0859-796X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":428937,"name":"Jamie M Faro","orcid":"0000-0002-6592-463X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1034,"name":"Emelia J. Benjamin","orcid":"0000-0003-4076-2336","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":258773,"name":"Ludovic Trinquart","orcid":"0000-0002-3028-4900","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":270499,"name":"Chunyu Liu","orcid":"0000-0002-9160-0153","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":55385,"name":"Joanne M. Murabito","orcid":"0000-0002-0192-7516","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":754722,"name":"Yuankai Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-2318-7539","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":69,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:58:04.622308Z","pmid":"41071587","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}