Use of social media in recruiting young people to mental health research: a scoping review

Abstract

ObjectivesThis review explored the literature on the use of social media in recruiting young people, aged 13–18 years, to mental health research. It aimed to identify barriers and facilitators to recruitment and strategies to improve participation in future research.DesignScoping review.Data sourcesArticles published between January 2011 and February 2023 were searched for on PubMed, Scopus, Medline (via EBSCOhost) and Cochrane Library databases.Eligibility criteriaStudies that outlined social media as a recruitment method and recruited participants aged 13–18 years.Data extraction and synthesisData was extracted by two reviewers independently and cross-checked by a third reviewer. Data on study design, aims, participants, recruitment methods and findings related specifically to social media as a recruitment tool were collected.Results24 journal articles met the inclusion criteria. Studies were predominantly surveys (n=13) conducted in the USA (n=16) recruiting via Facebook (n=16) and/or Instagram (n=14). Only nine of the included articles provided a summary of success and reviewed the efficacy of social media recruitment for young people in mental health research. Type of advertisement, the language used, time of day and the use of keywords were all found to be factors that may influence the success of recruitment through social media; however, as these are based on findings from a small number of studies, such potential influences require further investigation.ConclusionSocial media recruitment can be a successful method for recruiting young people to mental health research. Further research is needed into recruiting socioeconomically marginalised groups using this method, as well as the effectiveness of new social media platforms.RegistrationOpen Science Framework Registry (https://osf.io/mak75/).

Eating disorder symptoms and comorbid mental health risk among teens recruited to a digital intervention research study via two online approaches

“…Previous studies on the feasibility of different recruitment approaches have reported recruitment rates, that is, the ability to recruit a certain number of eligible individuals over a specified timeframe, as a way to evaluate the practicality and feasibility of different methods of outreach (Bowen et al, 2009;Brøgger-Mikkelsen et al, 2020;Orsmond & Cohn, 2015). To evaluate our recruitment approach, feasibility in the current study was defined as our team's ability to connect with 150 teens who met inclusion criteria for our digital intervention study using our two online recruitment methods over 6 months, a timeframe comparable to other digital intervention studies among teens (Ali et al, 2022;Salem et al, 2023;Smith et al, 2023). Both recruitment approaches were used for approximately 6 months in total.…”