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The Use of Social Media to Recruit Participants With Rare Conditions: Lynch Syndrome as an Example
BACKGROUND: Social media is increasingly being used as a means of recruiting participants, particularly for investigators whose areas of interest involve rare conditions or hard-to-reach populations. However, much of the literature to date has focused on paid advertisement recruitment. OBJECTIVE: We...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
JMIR Publications
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5294367/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28115298 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/resprot.6066 |
Sumario: | BACKGROUND: Social media is increasingly being used as a means of recruiting participants, particularly for investigators whose areas of interest involve rare conditions or hard-to-reach populations. However, much of the literature to date has focused on paid advertisement recruitment. OBJECTIVE: We used Lynch syndrome (LS), a rare hereditary cancer syndrome, as a model to demonstrate the successful partnership between researchers and a Web-based patient education and advocacy organization to facilitate participant recruitment. METHODS: Recruitment was undertaken in partnership with Lynch Syndrome International (LSI), an advocacy organization with a strong social media presence. After LSI published our study information, participants followed up via email or phone call. Following prescreening and consent, interested and eligible participants were then sent a secure survey link. RESULTS: Within 36 hours of a single Facebook post by the site administrators for LSI, over 150 individuals responded via phone or email. Sixty-five individuals were sent the survey link and 57 individuals completed the survey (88% response rate). Of note, these 57 individuals were geographically diverse within the Unites States, representing LS patients from 26 different states. CONCLUSIONS: This approach has several advantages, including recruitment through a trusted source outside of a clinical setting, higher response rates, and cost-effectiveness with a small research team in a relatively short amount of time. Overall, social media recruitment with a trusted online partner can be highly effective in hard-to-reach clinical populations, such as patients with LS. However, this approach requires additional effort for eligibility screening. |
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