Smith Rebecca, Alvarez Crystal, Crixell Sylvia, Lane Michelle A
Nutrition and Foods Program, School of Family and Consumer Sciences, Texas State University, 601 University Dr., San Marcos, TX, 78666, USA.
BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2021 Mar 12;21(1):203. doi: 10.1186/s12884-021-03680-1.
It is well known that recruitment is a challenging aspect of any study involving human subjects. This challenge is exacerbated when the population sought is reticent to participate in research as is the case with pregnant women and individuals with depression. This paper compares recruitment methods used for the Food, Feelings, and Family Study, an observational, longitudinal pilot study concerning how diet and bisphenol A exposure affect maternal mood and cognitive function during and after pregnancy.
Pregnant women were recruited to this study over a period of 15 months using traditional methods, social media including paid and unpaid posts, and emails broadcast to the university community. Contingency analysis using the Pearson's Chi-square test was used to determine if recruitment method was associated with likelihood of participation. T-tests were used to analyze Facebook advertisement success. ANOVAs and Fisher exact tests were used to determine if recruitment method was related to continuous and categorical demographics, respectively.
Social media resulted in the largest number of recruits, followed by traditional methods and broadcast email. Women recruited through social media were less likely to participate. In contrast, use of broadcast email resulted in a smaller pool of recruits but these recruits were more likely to be eligible for and complete the study. Most women recruited via social media were the result of unpaid posts to the study's Facebook page. Paid posts lasting at least 4 days were the most successful. Recruitment method was not associated with participant demographics.
Social media has the potential to recruit a large pool of potential subjects; however, when studies require a large time investment such as the case here, women recruited through social media are less likely to participate and complete the study than women recruited through other means.
N/A. This study does not describe a health care intervention.
众所周知，在任何涉及人类受试者的研究中，招募都是一个具有挑战性的方面。当所寻求的人群不愿参与研究时，这一挑战就会加剧，孕妇和抑郁症患者就是这种情况。本文比较了“食物、情绪和家庭研究”中使用的招募方法，这是一项观察性纵向试点研究，关注饮食和双酚A暴露如何影响孕期及产后的母亲情绪和认知功能。
在15个月的时间里，采用传统方法、社交媒体（包括付费和免费帖子）以及向大学社区发送电子邮件的方式招募孕妇参与本研究。使用Pearson卡方检验进行列联分析，以确定招募方法是否与参与可能性相关。使用t检验分析Facebook广告的效果。方差分析和Fisher精确检验分别用于确定招募方法是否与连续和分类人口统计学特征相关。
社交媒体招募的人数最多，其次是传统方法和群发电子邮件。通过社交媒体招募的女性参与的可能性较小。相比之下，群发电子邮件招募的人数较少，但这些招募对象更有可能符合研究条件并完成研究。通过社交媒体招募的大多数女性是通过向该研究的Facebook页面发布免费帖子招募来的。持续至少4天的付费帖子最成功。招募方法与参与者的人口统计学特征无关。
社交媒体有潜力招募大量潜在受试者；然而，当研究需要大量时间投入时，如此处的情况，通过社交媒体招募的女性比通过其他方式招募的女性参与并完成研究的可能性更小。
无。本研究未描述医疗保健干预措施。
