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Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review

Recruiting participants is a challenge for many health, medical and psychosocial research projects. One tool more frequently being used to improve recruitment is the social networking website Facebook. A systematic review was conducted to identify studies that have used Facebook to recruit participa...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Thornton, Louise, Batterham, Philip J., Fassnacht, Daniel B., Kay-Lambkin, Frances, Calear, Alison L., Hunt, Sally
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6096238/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30135792
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2016.02.001
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author Thornton, Louise
Batterham, Philip J.
Fassnacht, Daniel B.
Kay-Lambkin, Frances
Calear, Alison L.
Hunt, Sally
author_facet Thornton, Louise
Batterham, Philip J.
Fassnacht, Daniel B.
Kay-Lambkin, Frances
Calear, Alison L.
Hunt, Sally
author_sort Thornton, Louise
collection PubMed
description Recruiting participants is a challenge for many health, medical and psychosocial research projects. One tool more frequently being used to improve recruitment is the social networking website Facebook. A systematic review was conducted to identify studies that have used Facebook to recruit participants of all ages, to any psychosocial, health or medical research. 110 unique studies that used Facebook as a recruitment source were included in the review. The majority of studies used a cross-sectional design (80%) and addressed a physical health or disease issue (57%). Half (49%) of the included studies reported specific details of the Facebook recruitment process. Researchers paid between $1.36 and $110 per completing participants (Mean = $17.48, SD = $23.06). Among studies that examined the representativeness of their sample, the majority concluded (86%) their Facebook-recruited samples were similarly representative of samples recruited via traditional methods. These results indicate that Facebook is an effective and cost-efficient recruitment method. Researchers should consider their target group, advertisement wording, offering incentives and no-cost methods of recruitment when considering Facebook as a recruitment source. It is hoped this review will assist researchers to make decisions regarding the use of Facebook as a recruitment tool in future research.
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spelling pubmed-60962382018-08-22 Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review Thornton, Louise Batterham, Philip J. Fassnacht, Daniel B. Kay-Lambkin, Frances Calear, Alison L. Hunt, Sally Internet Interv Review Article Recruiting participants is a challenge for many health, medical and psychosocial research projects. One tool more frequently being used to improve recruitment is the social networking website Facebook. A systematic review was conducted to identify studies that have used Facebook to recruit participants of all ages, to any psychosocial, health or medical research. 110 unique studies that used Facebook as a recruitment source were included in the review. The majority of studies used a cross-sectional design (80%) and addressed a physical health or disease issue (57%). Half (49%) of the included studies reported specific details of the Facebook recruitment process. Researchers paid between $1.36 and $110 per completing participants (Mean = $17.48, SD = $23.06). Among studies that examined the representativeness of their sample, the majority concluded (86%) their Facebook-recruited samples were similarly representative of samples recruited via traditional methods. These results indicate that Facebook is an effective and cost-efficient recruitment method. Researchers should consider their target group, advertisement wording, offering incentives and no-cost methods of recruitment when considering Facebook as a recruitment source. It is hoped this review will assist researchers to make decisions regarding the use of Facebook as a recruitment tool in future research. Elsevier 2016-04-27 /pmc/articles/PMC6096238/ /pubmed/30135792 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2016.02.001 Text en © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review Article
Thornton, Louise
Batterham, Philip J.
Fassnacht, Daniel B.
Kay-Lambkin, Frances
Calear, Alison L.
Hunt, Sally
Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review
title Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review
title_full Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review
title_fullStr Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review
title_full_unstemmed Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review
title_short Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review
title_sort recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using facebook: systematic review
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6096238/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30135792
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2016.02.001
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