Hello,
in the framework of my master's thesis, I would like to assess the efficacy of probiotic on upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) incidence and symptom ratings in athletes under free-living conditions . I think I should use The Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Symptom Survey (WURSS). I will choose WURSS-11 because may reduce the time and burden required for completing the survey. But different protocols have been used in different studies (https://www.fammed.wisc.edu/wurss/).
Hence my question.
Should participants complete the questionnaires every day? Or maybe on the day, when they consider a cold to start?
The study will last 8-10 weeks. I'm afraid of having problems filling out the questionnaires so often.
I will be grateful for your help.
For a participant to fill out the same questionnaire every day may be boring and you may end up with so many drop outs that will ruin your experiment. You may want to do the following:
1. Increase your sample size so as to still have a reasonable number of volunteers even with a high drop out rate. This is achievable if the questionnaire is electronic.
2. Plan to spread out the questionnaire response (say every weekend) if the tested product is the same and try to know from the respondents beforehand the number of times they will be comfortable responding to the same questions. If they will be testing different products, I suggest you take one product per week (six days resting time). During that period, they can respond to the questionnaire.
3. Think of providing some kind of incentives to respondents every time they respond to your questionnaire.
4. Let the respondents know why your study is important to them and society as a whole and how their contribution is part of the expected success.
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