Social Development Research Group, School of Social Work, University of Washington, 9725 3rd Ave NE, Seattle, WA, 98115, USA.
Seattle Children's Research Institute, Center for Child Health Behavior and Development, Seattle, WA, USA.
Prev Sci. 2018 May;19(4):559-569. doi: 10.1007/s11121-017-0844-7.
Despite strong evidence that family programs are effective in preventing adolescent substance use, recruiting parents to participate in such programs remains a persistent challenge. This study explored the feasibility of using Facebook to recruit parents of middle school students to a self-directed family program to prevent adolescent drug use. The study used paid Facebook ads aiming to recruit 100 parents in Washington and Colorado using marijuana- or parenting-focused messages. All ad-recruited parents were also invited to refer others in order to compare Facebook recruitment to web-based respondent-driven sampling. Despite offering a $15 incentive for each successfully referred participant, the majority of the screened (70.4%) and eligible (65.1%) parents were recruited through Facebook ads. Yet, eligibility and consent rates were significantly higher among referred (76.6 and 57.3%, respectively) than Facebook-recruited parents (60.0 and 36.6%, respectively). Click-through rates on Facebook were higher for marijuana-focused than parenting-focused ads (0.72 and 0.65%, respectively). The final sample (54% Facebook-recruited) consisted of 103 demographically homogeneous parents (female, educated, non-Hispanic White, and mostly from Washington). Although Facebook was an effective and efficient method to recruit parents to a study with equal to better cost-effectiveness than traditional recruitment strategies, the promise of social media to reach a diverse population was not realized. Additional approaches to Facebook recruitment are needed to reach diverse samples in real-world settings and increase public health impact of family programs.
尽管有强有力的证据表明家庭计划在预防青少年药物使用方面非常有效，但招募家长参与此类计划仍然是一个持续存在的挑战。本研究探讨了使用 Facebook 招募中学学生家长参与自我指导的家庭计划以预防青少年药物使用的可行性。该研究使用付费 Facebook 广告，旨在通过针对大麻或育儿的信息，从华盛顿州和科罗拉达州招募 100 名家长。所有通过广告招募的家长也被邀请推荐其他人，以便将 Facebook 招募与基于网络的受访者驱动抽样进行比较。尽管为每个成功推荐的参与者提供了 15 美元的奖励，但通过 Facebook 广告招募的筛选出的（70.4%）和符合条件的（65.1%）家长仍占多数。然而，推荐（分别为 76.6%和 57.3%）的家长的合格和同意率明显高于 Facebook 招募的家长（分别为 60.0%和 36.6%）。Facebook 上的点击率在大麻相关广告（分别为 0.72%和 0.65%）比育儿相关广告（分别为 0.65%和 0.65%）更高。最终样本（54%通过 Facebook 招募）由 103 名人口统计学上同质的家长组成（女性、受过教育、非西班牙裔白人，主要来自华盛顿州）。尽管 Facebook 是一种有效且高效的方法，可以招募到与传统招募策略具有同等甚至更高成本效益的研究参与者，但社交媒体要想接触到更多样化的人群的承诺并未实现。需要额外的 Facebook 招募方法，以便在现实环境中接触到更多样化的样本，并提高家庭计划的公共卫生影响力。
