Detecting and Mitigating Fraudulent Participation: Lessons Learned from a Mixed Methods Study

A surge in social media research recruitment has led to increased fraudulent participation, impacting studies such as our sequential mixed methods research (MMR) study on peer loneliness among adolescents with chronic pain during COVID-19. The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenges and subsequent strategies implemented to prevent and identify fraudulent participants during a MMR study that used online data collection methods. The results of the various mitigation strategies implemented are provided along with recommendations for future research. This article makes a valuable contribution to MMR literature by highlighting the threat to data integrity and detailing various mitigation strategies for different phases of MMR. These strategies should be proactively implemented by researchers to increase data integrity.