Farina-Henry Eva, Waterston Leo B, Blaisdell Laura L
Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Maine Medical Center Research Institute, Portland, ME, United States.
JMIR Res Protoc. 2015 Jul 22;4(3):e90. doi: 10.2196/resprot.4260.
This paper presents the first formal evaluation of social media (SM) use in the National Children's Study (NCS). The NCS is a prospective, longitudinal study of the effects of environment and genetics on children's health, growth and development. The Study employed a multifaceted community outreach campaign in combination with a SM campaign to educate participants and their communities about the Study. SM essentially erases geographic differences between people due to its omnipresence, which was an important consideration in this multi-site national study. Using SM in the research setting requires an understanding of potential threats to confidentiality and privacy and the role that posted content plays as an extension of the informed consent process.
This pilot demonstrates the feasibility of creating linkages and databases to measure and compare SM with new content and engagement metrics.
Metrics presented include basic use metrics for Facebook as well as newly created metrics to assist with Facebook content and engagement analyses.
Increasing Likes per month demonstrates that online communities can be quickly generated. Content and Engagement analyses describe what content of posts NCS Study Centers were using, what content they were posting about, and what the online NCS communities found most engaging.
These metrics highlight opportunities to optimize time and effort while determining the content of future posts. Further research about content analysis, optimal metrics to describe engagement in research, the role of localized content and stakeholders, and social media use in participant recruitment is warranted.
本文首次对国家儿童研究（NCS）中社交媒体（SM）的使用进行了正式评估。NCS是一项关于环境和基因对儿童健康、成长及发育影响的前瞻性纵向研究。该研究采用了多方面的社区外展活动，并结合社交媒体活动，向参与者及其社区宣传该研究。由于社交媒体无处不在，它基本消除了人们之间的地域差异，这在这项多地点的全国性研究中是一个重要考量因素。在研究环境中使用社交媒体需要了解对保密性和隐私的潜在威胁，以及所发布内容作为知情同意过程延伸所起的作用。
本试点展示了创建关联和数据库以测量并比较社交媒体与新内容及参与度指标的可行性。
所呈现的指标包括脸书的基本使用指标以及为协助脸书内容和参与度分析而新创建的指标。
每月点赞数的增加表明可以快速形成在线社区。内容和参与度分析描述了NCS研究中心使用的帖子内容、他们发布的关于什么的内容，以及在线NCS社区最感兴趣的内容。
这些指标凸显了在确定未来帖子内容时优化时间和精力的机会。有必要对内容分析、描述研究参与度的最佳指标、本地化内容和利益相关者的作用以及社交媒体在参与者招募中的使用进行进一步研究。
