Reach, engagement, and effectiveness: a systematic review of evaluation methodologies used in health promotion via social networking sites

Abstract

Issue addressed Social networking sites (SNS) are increasingly popular platforms for health promotion. Advancements in SNS health promotion require quality evidence; however, interventions are often not formally evaluated. This study aims to describe evaluation practices used in SNS health promotion. Methods A systematic review was undertaken of Medline, PsycINFO, Scopus, EMBASE, CINAHL Plus, Communication and Mass Media Complete, and Cochrane Library databases. Articles published between 2006 and 2013 describing any health promotion intervention delivered using SNS were included. Results Forty-seven studies were included. There were two main evaluation approaches: closed designs (n=23), which used traditional research designs and formal recruitment procedures; and open designs (n=19), which evaluated the intervention in a real-world setting, allowing unknown SNS users to interact with the content without enrolling in research. Closed designs were unable to assess reach and engagement beyond their research sample. Open designs often relied on weaker study designs with no use of objective outcome measures and yielded low response rates. Conclusions Barriers to evaluation included low participation rates, high attrition, unknown representativeness and lack of comparison groups. Acceptability was typically assessed among those engaged with the intervention, with limited population data available to accurately assess intervention reach. Few studies were able to assess uptake of the intervention in a real-life setting while simultaneously assessing effectiveness of interventions with research rigour. So what? Through use of quasi-experimental or well designed before-after evaluations, in combination with detailed engagement metrics, it is possible to balance assessment of effectiveness and reach to evaluate SNS health promotion.

Communicating health—Optimising young adults’ engagement with health messages using social media: Study protocol

“…As the materials are discussed, debated and generated by the users, the evolved (co‐created) outcomes will be evaluated according to their value and worth for each segment. The user generated outcomes will be evaluated in an online survey to the same participants (n = 100) which will also produce analytics for engagement and effectiveness of the co‐created SM campaigns . Young Aboriginal adults will be included in the same co‐creation activity and will be recruited by the Aboriginal researcher (TW).…”

“…The user generated outcomes will be evaluated in an online survey to the same participants (n = 100) which will also produce analytics for engagement and effectiveness of the co-created SM campaigns. 78 Young Aboriginal adults will be included in the same co-creation activity and will be recruited by the Aboriginal researcher (TW).…”

Commentary on Boumpariset al. (2017): It works, but only if they use it-addressing treatment adherence and attrition in internet interventions for illicit substance use

“…depression and anxiety ); however, such data are often poorly reported or absent from primary studies. Advanced web analytical tools now provide researchers with opportunities to capture metrics that could approximate intervention adherence and engagement, including length of time spent browsing a page, video views, comments, shares, likes and re‐posts that could be utilized in future trials.…”

“…This is particularly important given that, as the authors note, five of the 17 included studies used completer‐only analyses. It has been suggested that some of the benefits of internet interventions, including anonymity and self‐directed learning, may actually facilitate high participant attrition . For example, the authors of one study noted that participants could simply close their web browsers once the questionnaires appeared on screen.…”

La participación de los stakeholders de las asociaciones contra el cáncer en Facebook

“…mación relativa a esta materia tengan un mayor protagonismo (Parikh y Huniewicz, 2015) y que profesionales y pacientes puedan relacionarse de manera más directa. Este nuevo panorama ha llamado también la atención del mundo académico, de manera que las investigaciones sobre redes sociales y salud han proliferado en los últimos años, hasta el punto de que los autores que se han dedicado a analizar la bibliografía existente han localizado más de un centenar de trabajos de estas característi-cas (Moorhead et al, 2013;Amon et al, 2014;Koteyko, Hunt y Gunter, 2015;Veneroni et al, 2015;Lim et al, 2017).…”