Digital questionnaire platform in the Danish Blood Donor Study.

Area of Science:

• Biobanking and Population Studies
• Digital Health Technologies
• Data Management in Research

Background:

• The Danish Blood Donor Study (DBDS) is a large prospective, population-based study and biobank including 100,000 donors since 2010.
• Historically, paper-based questionnaires were used for data collection from study participants.
• A transition to a digital platform was necessary to modernize data acquisition processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the establishment and implementation of a digital tablet-based questionnaire platform for the DBDS.
• To replace the existing paper-based system with a more efficient and flexible digital solution.
• To integrate digital questionnaire data with other data sources within the DBDS database.

Main Methods:

• Development of a digital questionnaire using the open-source LimeSurvey software.
• Secure online access for participants via an encrypted HTTP connection using personal civil registration numbers.
• Implementation of a front-end web server and collection server for data retrieval and merging with biobank, register, and genetic data.

Main Results:

• The digital platform allows for personalized questionnaires, dynamically adapting to donor responses.
• Immediate availability of updated questionnaires across all collection sites upon initiation of new projects.
• Successful integration of digital questionnaire data with existing DBDS data streams.

Conclusions:

• The digital platform offers a faster, more cost-effective, and flexible method for collecting valid data from blood donors.
• This digital system streamlines data collection for the Danish Blood Donor Study.
• The platform's design is adaptable for global use, contingent on data security considerations.