Facebook as an effective recruitment strategy for mental health research of hard to reach populations

Kayrouz, Rony; Dear, Blake F.; Karin, Eyal; Titov, Nickolai

doi:10.1016/j.invent.2016.01.001

Cited by 118 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In further sections of this paper, the article by Head et al [35] is counted as a single article or 2 articles, according to whether the conclusions from the 2 studies pertinent to the outcomes of this paper are the same or different. Out of 30 studies, 12 studies (40%) reported higher rates of recruitment through social media as compared with any of the other methods used [14-17,26,28,31,32,35, 36,41,42] and 15 studies (50%) reported recruitment via social media to be less effective than at least one other method used [18-21,23-25, 27,33-35,37-40]. Heffner et al [20] and Rabin et al [24] found social media to be the least effective method out of multiple (>2) recruitment methods used.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of the 12 studies that found social media to be the best method of recruitment, 8 were observational studies [14,16,17,26,28,31,35,41] and the remaining 4 were interventional studies [15,32,36,42], as shown in Multimedia Appendix 2. In addition, 6 of these studies targeted populations deemed hard to reach [16,17,28,31,32,36], and 6 studies targeted specific conditions or disorders [14,16,17,28,31,32].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, 6 of these studies targeted populations deemed hard to reach [16,17,28,31,32,36], and 6 studies targeted specific conditions or disorders [14,16,17,28,31,32]. Furthermore, 1 study targeted only young adults (aged 23-30 years) [14].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, 1 study targeted only young adults (aged 23-30 years) [14]. Among the 12 studies, 8 studies used only Facebook for recruitment [14-16,28,35,36,41,42]. Of the remaining 4 studies, 2 studies used a combination of Facebook and Twitter [31,32] and 2 studies used a combination of Facebook and other social media websites [17,26].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The Use of Social Media in Recruitment for Medical Research Studies: A Scoping Review

Topolovec-Vranic¹,

Natarajan²

2016

J Med Internet Res

419

345

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundRecruiting an adequate number of participants into medical research studies is challenging for many researchers. Over the past 10 years, the use of social media websites has increased in the general population. Consequently, social media websites are a new, powerful method for recruiting participants into such studies.ObjectiveThe objective was to answer the following questions: (1) Is the use of social media more effective at research participant recruitment than traditional methods? (2) Does social media recruit a sample of research participants comparable to that recruited via other methods? (3) Is social media more cost-effective at research participant recruitment than traditional methods?MethodsUsing the MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and EMBASE databases, all medical research studies that used social media and at least one other method for recruitment were identified. These studies were then categorized as either interventional studies or observational studies. For each study, the effectiveness of recruitment, demographic characteristics of the participants, and cost-effectiveness of recruitment using social media were evaluated and compared with that of the other methods used. The social media sites used in recruitment were identified, and if a study stated that the target population was “difficult to reach” as identified by the authors of the study, this was noted.ResultsOut of 30 studies, 12 found social media to be the most effective recruitment method, 15 did not, and 3 found social media to be equally effective as another recruitment method. Of the 12 studies that found social media to be the best recruitment method, 8 were observational studies while 4 were interventional studies. Of the 15 studies that did not find social media to be the best recruitment method, 7 were interventional studies while 8 were observational studies. In total, 8 studies stated that the target population was “hard-to-reach,” and 6 of these studies found social media to be the most effective recruitment method. Out of 14 studies that reported demographic data for participants, 2 studies found that social media recruited a sample comparable to that recruited via traditional methods and 12 did not. Out of 13 studies that reported cost-effectiveness, 5 studies found social media to be the most cost-effective recruitment method, 7 did not, and 1 study found social media equally cost-effective as compared with other methods.ConclusionsOnly 12 studies out of 30 found social media to be the most effective recruitment method. There is evidence that social media can be the best recruitment method for hard-to-reach populations and observational studies. With only 30 studies having compared recruitment through social media with other methods, more studies need to be done that report the effectiveness of recruitment for each strategy, demographics of participants recruited, and cost-effectiveness of each method.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Use of Social Media in Recruitment for Medical Research Studies: A Scoping Review

Topolovec-Vranic¹,

Natarajan²

2016

J Med Internet Res

419

345

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A second strategy that has become popular for recruiting HTR populations for survey research is the use of targeted ads on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter [29,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. Social media platforms possess massive quantities of user data that allow for highly specific targeting of ads to HTR populations on multiple features, such as age, gender, location, interests, and relationship preferences (women interested in women, women interested in women and men, men interested in men, men interested in women and men).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recruiting Hard-to-Reach Populations for Survey Research: Using Facebook and Instagram Advertisements and In-Person Intercept in LGBT Bars and Nightclubs to Recruit LGBT Young Adults (Preprint)

Guillory¹,

Wiant²,

Farrelly³

et al. 2017

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Tobacco public education campaigns are focusing increasingly on hardtoreach (HTR) populations at higher risk for smoking (eg, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender [LGBT] young adults), prompting campaign content creators and evaluators to develop marketing and participant recruitment strategies to reach HTR populations in virtual and physical spaces where they frequently spend time.

show abstract

Clinical Trial Enrollment of Racial, Ethnic, and Underrepresented Groups—Leveraging a Digital Infrastructure

Culbert

Oladeru

2021

JAMA Oncol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Facebook as an effective recruitment strategy for mental health research of hard to reach populations

Cited by 118 publications

References 30 publications

The Use of Social Media in Recruitment for Medical Research Studies: A Scoping Review

The Use of Social Media in Recruitment for Medical Research Studies: A Scoping Review

Recruiting Hard-to-Reach Populations for Survey Research: Using Facebook and Instagram Advertisements and In-Person Intercept in LGBT Bars and Nightclubs to Recruit LGBT Young Adults (Preprint)

Clinical Trial Enrollment of Racial, Ethnic, and Underrepresented Groups—Leveraging a Digital Infrastructure

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About