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Recruitment of adolescents for a smoking study: use of traditional strategies and social media

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Translational Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Engaging and retaining adolescents in research studies is challenging. Social media offers utility for expanding the sphere of research recruitment. This study examined and compared traditional and Facebook-based recruitment strategies on reach, enrollment, cost, and retention. Substance users aged 13–17 years were recruited through several methods, including social media, a study website, fliers, talks in schools, bus ads, and referrals. Study involvement included a one-time visit and semiannual follow-up surveys. 1265 individuals contacted study personnel; 629 were ineligible; 129 declined; and 200 participants enrolled. Facebook drew the greatest volume but had a high rate of ineligibles. Referrals were the most successful and cost-effective ($7 per enrolled participant); school talks were the least. Recruitment source was unrelated to retention success. Facebook may expand recruitment reach, but had greater financial costs and more ineligible contacts, resulting in fewer enrollees relative to traditional interpersonal recruitment methods. Referrals, though useful for study engagement, did not provide a differential benefit in terms of long-term retention.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Jennifer Simington and Maxwell Berlyant for their data collection efforts and study support. This work was supported by the National Cancer Institute (grant number R01CA140216) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (grant number R01DA036508).

Conflict of interest

None

Adherence to Ethical Principles

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Adolescent Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, 3333 California Street, Suite 245, San Francisco, CA, 94118, USA

    Michelle A Rait RN, MA & Mark L Rubinstein MD

  2. Stanford Prevention Research Center, Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Judith J Prochaska PhD, MPH

Authors
  1. Michelle A Rait RN, MA
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  2. Judith J Prochaska PhD, MPH
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  3. Mark L Rubinstein MD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark L Rubinstein MD.

Additional information

The work was performed at the University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA.

Implications

Social media can be used in recruitment to achieve a large number of initial responses from which referrals can then be generated.

Interpersonal referrals may be the most cost-effective and successful means of building a study population.

Retention rates did not differ between Facebook and referral recruitment methods, suggesting that both methods can be used in longitudinal research.

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Rait, M.A., Prochaska, J.J. & Rubinstein, M.L. Recruitment of adolescents for a smoking study: use of traditional strategies and social media. Behav. Med. Pract. Policy Res. 5, 254–259 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-015-0312-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13142-015-0312-5

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