While writing codes you need to convert it according to your requirement

For doing that you can do typecasting of the operands

 Public Function GetFriendsToNudge(ByVal accessToken As String) As UsersResponse
        Dim reader As SqlDataReader
        Dim users As New Users()
        Dim usersResponse As New UsersResponse()

        Try
            Using sqlConnection As New SqlConnection(ConnectionString)
                If sqlConnection.State = ConnectionState.Closed Then
                    sqlConnection.Open()
                End If

                Dim parameterList As New List(Of SqlParameter)()
                parameterList.Add(New SqlParameter("@AccessToken", accessToken))

                reader = BaseRepository.ExecuteReader(sqlConnection, CommandType.StoredProcedure, "uspGetFriendsToNudge", parameterList.ToArray())

                If reader.HasRows Then
                    While reader.Read()

                        users.users.Add(New User() With {
                            .Id = If(reader("ID") IsNot Nothing, If(Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(Convert.ToString(reader("ID"))), Convert.ToInt32(Convert.ToString(reader("ID")).Trim()), 0), 0),
                            .FullName = If(reader("Friend") IsNot Nothing, Convert.ToString(reader("Friend")).Trim(), String.Empty)
                        })

                    End While

                    usersResponse.Status = True
                    usersResponse.Message = "Friends successfully fetched."
                Else
                    usersResponse.Status = False
                    usersResponse.Message = KnownConstants.UnauthorizedMessage
                End If
            End Using
        Catch ex As Exception
            Logger.LogException(ex)

            usersResponse.Status = False
            usersResponse.Message = "Error occurred while getting friends."
        End Try

        usersResponse.data = users
        Return usersResponse
    End Function

In this code type conversion and checking both are done at the coding end using ternary operators