Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: systematic review
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Thornton, Louise; Batterham, Philip; Fassnacht, Daniel B.; Kay-Lambkin, Frances; Calear, Alison L.; Hunt, Sally
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...[Show more]
dc.contributor.author | Thornton, Louise | |
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dc.contributor.author | Batterham, Philip | |
dc.contributor.author | Fassnacht, Daniel B. | |
dc.contributor.author | Kay-Lambkin, Frances | |
dc.contributor.author | Calear, Alison L. | |
dc.contributor.author | Hunt, Sally | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2016-10-07T05:35:41Z | |
dc.date.available | 2016-10-07T05:35:41Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 2214-7829 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1885/109187 | |
dc.description.abstract | 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. | |
dc.description.sponsorship | PJB, FKL and ALC are supported by NHMRC fellowships. LKT is supported by a University of New South Wales Vice-Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellowship. | |
dc.publisher | Elsevier | |
dc.rights | © 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by–nc–nd/4.0/) | |
dc.source | Internet Interventions | |
dc.subject | ||
dc.subject | Recruitment | |
dc.subject | Online recruitment | |
dc.subject | Systematic review | |
dc.title | Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: systematic review | |
dc.type | Journal article | |
local.identifier.citationvolume | 4 | |
dc.date.issued | 2016 | |
local.identifier.ariespublication | u5684624xPUB80 | |
local.publisher.url | http://www.elsevier.com/ | |
local.type.status | Published Version | |
local.contributor.affiliation | Batterham, P. J., National Institute for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University | |
local.contributor.affiliation | Calear, A. L., National Institute for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University | |
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage | 72 | |
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage | 81 | |
local.identifier.doi | 10.1016/j.invent.2016.02.001 | |
dcterms.accessRights | Open Access | |
Collections | ANU Research Publications |
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