Rony Kayrouz|Blake F. Dear|Eyal Karin|Nickolai Titov
Facebook as an effective recruitment strategy for mental health research of hard to reach populations
Macquarie University|Macquarie University|Macquarie University|Macquarie University
recent reports indicate facebook fb may facilitate recruitment hard reach participants mental health research present study aimed contribute emerging literature exploring recruitment data recently completed trial online treatment symptoms anxiety depression targeted arab people present study compared traditional recruitment strategies media releases emails print advertisements facebook strategies including boosting posts promoting websites events fb public fan pages main outcomes interest number started applications time cost per application associated fb traditional recruitment strategies target sample 350 sought total 81 participants applied participate 42week recruitment period overall 86 resultant applications occurred via fb recruitment poisson regression analysis indicated fb strategies timeeffective recruiting participants 25 times faster traditional strategies however differences costeffectiveness fb us37 per participant traditional strategies us40 per participant findings current study add existing literature detailing value fb recruitment strategies alongside traditional strategies way recruiting hardtoreach populations research however research needed explore alternative optimal strategies successful recruitment hard reach populations via fb online social media platforms