Evaluating Two Common Strategies for Research Participant Recruitment Into Autism Studies: Observational Study

Abstract

Background Ongoing research is necessary to better understand the causes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the developmental outcomes for individuals diagnosed with ASD, and the efficacy of the interventions. However, it is often difficult to recruit sufficient numbers of participants for studies, and despite the prevalence of ASD (currently estimated to affect 1 in 54 children), little research has focused on how to efficiently recruit participants with ASD. Objective The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of two different paid advertisements—social media and radio advertising—in recruiting participants for a study enrolling people with ASD and their family members by examining the number of participants enrolled, the cost per participant, and the geographic reach of each type of advertising. Methods We examined participant enrollment in a study following nonoverlapping paid advertisements on a popular FM radio station (aired in three cities across two states) and Facebook (six advertisements that ran in five cities across two states). The total paid investment in the radio campaign was $12,030 and that in the Facebook campaign was $2950. Following the advertising campaigns, 1391 participants in the study who were affiliated with the Houston, Texas, site received email invitations to participate in a brief survey about the ways in which they learned about the study (eg, social media, medical provider, website) and which of these were most influential in their decisions to participate; 374 (26.8%) of the participants completed this survey. Results Social media advertising outperformed radio in all three parameters examined by enrolling more participants (338 vs 149), with a lower average cost per participant ($8.73 vs $80.74) and a wider geographic reach, based on a comparison of the number of zip codes within and outside of Texas for questionnaire respondents who rated social media as the most influential method of contact (n=367, χ21=5.85, P=.02). Of the 374 survey participants, 139 (37.2%) reported that they had seen the study on social media prior to enrollment, while only 9 (2.4%) said they heard about it via radio. Conclusions Our findings suggest that advertising on social media can efficiently reach a large pool of potential participants with ASD, increasing the likelihood of meeting study enrollment goals. Researchers should consider allocating at least some portion of recruitment dollars to social media platforms as a means of quickly and inexpensively reaching out to their target populations, including for studies with in-person procedures.

Social Media Use for Research Participant Recruitment: Integrative Literature Review

“…Research studies Participants, n (%) Age category [30,31,[33][34][35]40,48,50,52,57,58,70,[73][74][75][76]78,79,[81][82][83]90,94,97,108,111,112,114,115] 28 (30) ≥18 years [2,32,36,39,56,66,68,86,89,92,93,96,[98][99][100][101]103,[105][106][107]110,119] 22…”

“…Records Population [30,35,37,38,44,48,50,52,81] Addiction: smoking and alcohol [34,39,42,53,56,58,61,66,68,89,97,107,111] Medical disease conditions: survivor of cancer, autism spectrum disorder, Lynch syndrome, people living with HIV, asthma, obstructive pulmonary disease, depression, and kidney transplant recipient [33,57,78,82,83,90] Lifestyle: men who have sex with men [45,62,75,76,86,88,95,102] Ethnic minorities: low-income and racial minority…”

“…Few studies specifically compared social media effectiveness to other platforms with the goal of establishing cost-effectiveness, efficacy, and feasibility. In this review, 7% (7/96) of the included studies aimed to determine the effectiveness of social media compared with other recruitment strategies [39,51,52,58,70,74,106], and 9% (9/96) of studies that did not compare social media platforms with any other strategy [30,38,41,46,63,72,73,93,111] found social media as an effective recruitment strategy in both instances.…”

Telehealth Interventions to Promote Health and Behavior-Related Outcomes in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…The total number of participants who received hybrid interventions (in all included studies) was extremely low. Although the difficulty of recruiting participants with complex conditions, especially with ASD, is understandable and even supported by the literature (e.g., Ahmed et al, 2020 ; Lord et al, 2005 ; Vozenilek, 1999 ), further studies with larger samples and more robust designs are needed to provide strong evidence supporting the efficacy of hybrid interventions for adolescents with ASD.…”

Diagnostic Classification and Prognostic Prediction Using Common Genetic Variants in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Genotype-Based Deep Learning

“…The genetic landscape of ASD is heterogeneous and consists of various types of genetic abnormalities involving almost all genes (eg, SHANK3, SHANK2, CHD8, SEMA5A, DOCK4) with different levels of penetrance [6][7][8]. Thus, autism studies have been conducted with different types of genetic variants [9][10][11][12][13][14], including de novo or inherited copy number variants, multiple hits, rare variants, common variants, and genetic pathways associated with ASD.…”