ArticleInternet interventions2016
Facebook as an effective recruitment strategy for mental health research of hard to reach populations.
Article in Internet interventions, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 67 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
67 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Strategies for Implementing Occupational eMental Health Interventions: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Guideline
- Social media recruitment for mental health research: A systematic review.Comprehensive psychiatry · 2020Pooled 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
- Trial
- Trial
- 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
- Recruiting to a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Web-Based Program for People With Type 2 Diabetes and Depression: Lessons Learned at the Intersection of e-Mental Health and Primary Care.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Trial
- Challenging the Continued Usefulness of Social Media Recruitment for Surveys of Hidden Populations of People Who Use Opioids.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Assessment of Fraud Deterrence and Detection Procedures Used in a Web-Based Survey Study With Adult Black Cisgender Women: Description of Lessons Learned and Recommendations.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Article
- "All the horrible emotions have passed, I still remained, and I was safe": A qualitative study of Lesbian and Gay people's lived experience of completing a full Dialectical Behaviour Therapy programme.Psychology and psychotherapy · 2025Article
- Recruiting sexual minority youth for a drug abuse prevention trial: Comparing Instagram and Facebook.Contemporary clinical trials · 2025Article
- Searching for the unexpected - understanding information-seeking behaviours of people new to prison visits.Psychiatry, psychology, and law : an interdisciplinary journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law · 2025Article
- Successes and Challenges in Clinical Trial Recruitment: The Experience of a New Study Team.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Effect of Cultural Adaptation of a Smartphone-Based Self-Help Programme on Its Acceptability and Efficacy: Randomized Controlled Trial.Clinical psychology in Europe · 2024Article
- Low-Cost Recruitment Approach: Utilizing Facebook Groups to Recruit COVID-19 Long-Haulers.Research square · 2024Article
- The EMPOWER Occupational e-Mental Health Intervention Implementation Checklist to Foster e-Mental Health Interventions in the Workplace: Development Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Age differences in patterns of cannabis use among an online US sample of adults who consume cannabis frequently.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2024Article
- Digital health literacy and use of patient portals among Spanish-preferred patients in the United States: a cross-sectional assessment.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Phenotypic Environmental Sensitivity and Mental Health During Pregnancy and Post Partum: Protocol for the Experiences of Pregnancy Longitudinal Cohort Study.JMIR research protocols · 2023Article
7 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
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent reports indicate that Facebook (FB) may facilitate recruitment of hard to reach participants into mental health research. The present study aimed to contribute to this emerging literature by exploring recruitment data from a recently completed trial of online treatment for symptoms of anxiety and depression that targeted Arab people. The present study compared traditional recruitment strategies such as media releases, emails, and print advertisements with Facebook strategies including boosting posts, promoting websites, events and FB public fan pages. The main outcomes of interest were the number of started applications and the time and cost per application associated with the FB and traditional recruitment strategies. A target sample of 350 was sought and a total of 81 participants applied to participate over the 42-week recruitment period. Overall, 86% of the resultant applications occurred via FB recruitment and a Poisson regression analysis indicated the FB strategies were more time-effective, recruiting participants 2.5 times faster than the traditional strategies. However, there were no differences in cost-effectiveness for FB ($US37 per participant) and traditional strategies ($US40 per participant). The findings of the current study add to existing literature detailing the value of FB recruitment strategies, alongside more traditional strategies, as a way of recruiting hard-to-reach populations for research. However, more research is needed to explore alternative and optimal strategies for the successful recruitment of hard to reach populations via FB and other online social media platforms.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.