Table 1 Review of four sampling strategies commonly used in community-engaged research
From: Comparing two sampling methods to engage hard-to-reach communities in research priority setting
Sampling method | Definition | Strengths | Limitations | Community engagement and rigor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Strategy allows for selection of a sampling frame that may be most affected by a specific issue. | • Aims to maintain rigor and identify a sampling frame based on specific study driven variables or characteristics. | • Requires collaboration from others to identify participants matching characteristics sought. • Can take time due to specific variables or characteristics sought. | ✓✓ | |
Strategy uses existing relationships to identify participants. | • Benefits from existing relationships to identify participants. • Can focus on recruitment from specific locations, settings or activities. • Efficient and inexpensive. • May complete quickly. | • May result in homogeneous sampling frame. • Limited generalizability to broader population. • Less rigorous if organizations or partners do not follow a process to identify participants. | ✓✓ | |
Based on a referral approach where a small number of individuals with specific characteristics recruit others with these characteristics from their networks or community. | • Reach to participants with same characteristics. • Often used in community engagement research studies and mixed methods approaches. • Based on networks and relationships which may lend credibility to research. | • Referral contact may not be effective in identifying diverse individuals. • Referral contact may only identify participants meeting specific characteristics. • Participants may not share information freely for fear of privacy or confidentiality – especially in qualitative study. | ✓✓✓ | |
Respondent Driven Sampling [30] | Used to reach hidden or most-vulnerable populations basing participation and reach on trust of respondent recruiting frame. | • Seeds recruit a fixed number of participants. • Systematic information collected to identify potential biases. | • Requires training and time to capture and identify respondent relationships. • Reach may not be diverse. • Bias if great percent of participants share characteristics. | ✓✓✓ |