Trial reportJournal of medical Internet research2013
Internet-based recruitment to a depression prevention intervention: lessons from the Mood Memos study.
Trial report in Journal of medical Internet research, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 83 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
83 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Online Patient Recruitment in Clinical Trials: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2020Pooled it
- Social media recruitment for mental health research: A systematic review.Comprehensive psychiatry · 2020Pooled it
- Pooled it
- The Use of Facebook in Recruiting Participants for Health Research Purposes: A Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Pooled it
- Using Social Media to Recruit a Diverse Sample of Participants for a Mobile Health (mHealth) Intervention to Increase Physical Activity: Exploratory Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2025Trial
- Recruiting Cancer Survivors to a Mobile Mindfulness Intervention in the United States: Exploring Online and Face-to-Face Recruitment Strategies.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Trial
- A web-based, peer-supported self-management intervention to reduce distress in relatives of people with psychosis or bipolar disorder: the REACT RCT.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2020Trial
- Using Facebook for Large-Scale Online Randomized Clinical Trial Recruitment: Effective Advertising Strategies.Journal of medical Internet research · 2018Trial
- Participant Recruitment and Retention in Remote eHealth Intervention Trials: Methods and Lessons Learned From a Large Randomized Controlled Trial of Two Web-Based Smoking Interventions.Journal of medical Internet research · 2018Trial
- Implementation of a Web-Based Organ Donation Educational Intervention: Development and Use of a Refined Process Evaluation Model.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Trial
- Assessing Feasibility and Acceptability of Web-Based Enhanced Relapse Prevention for Bipolar Disorder (ERPonline): A Randomized Controlled Trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2017Trial
- Effectiveness and Cost-effectiveness of School-based Dissemination Strategies of an Internet-based Program for the Prevention and Early Intervention in Eating Disorders: A Randomized Trial.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2016Trial
- Craigslist versus print newspaper advertising for recruiting research participants for alcohol studies: Cost and participant characteristics.Addictive behaviors · 2016Trial
- Keywords to recruit Spanish- and English-speaking participants: evidence from an online postpartum depression randomized controlled trial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2014Trial
- Efficacy trial of an Internet-based intervention for cancer-related female sexual dysfunction.Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network : JNCCN · 2013Trial
- Self-Help for Depression via E-mail: A Randomised Controlled Trial of Effects on Depression and Self-Help Behaviour.PloS one · 2013Trial
- Recruitment Strategies in Registry-Based Observational Research: A Single-Center Experience in the United States from the HeartShare Study.Journal of cardiac failure - intersections · 2026Article
- Design and Performance of an Email-Based Patient Recruitment Campaign in Primary Care Research: Formative Secondary Analysis.JMIR human factors · 2026Article
- Recruitment strategies and participant motivations in a digital randomized controlled trial for the prevention of anxiety disorders: the prevANS study.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Improving Data Integrity in Samples Obtained From Web-Based Recruitment: Protocol for the Development of a Novel System for Assessing Participant Authenticity in a Remote Longitudinal Cohort Study of Polysubstance Use.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
23 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRecruiting participants to randomized controlled trials of health interventions can be very difficult. Internet-based recruitment is becoming an increasingly important mode of recruitment, yet there are few detailed accounts of experiences recruiting participants to mental health interventions.
objectiveTo report on our experience with Internet-based recruitment to an online depression prevention intervention and pass on lessons we learned.
methodsParticipants were recruited to the Mood Memos study, an online preventive depression intervention, purely through Internet-based sources. The study was targeted to adults with subthreshold depression symptoms from several English-speaking countries. A variety of online recruitment sources were trialed, including search engine advertising (Google, Yahoo!, Bing), Facebook advertising, posts in forums and online noticeboards, and promotion through relevant websites and email newsletters of mental health organizations.
resultsThe study website received visits from 94,808 individuals over the 14-month recruitment period. The recruitment target was reached with 1699 individuals signing up to the randomized controlled trial and 1326 fully enrolling. Most visitors arrived via Google advertising, which promoted a depression-screening questionnaire. Google advertising accounted for nearly half of the total participants who signed up to the study, at an average cost of AUD $12 per participant. Promoting the study through trustworthy organizations and websites known to participants was also effective. Recruitment techniques that were less effective were contacting forums, email groups, and community noticeboards.
conclusionsSeveral techniques, including Google advertising, were successful in recruiting participants to a trial evaluating an online depression intervention. Results suggest that Internet-based recruitment to mental health interventions is feasible and can be relatively affordable.
trial registrationACTRN12609000925246.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.