Williamson Charlotte, Rona Roberto J, Simms Amos, Fear Nicola T, Goodwin Laura, Murphy Dominic, Leightley Daniel
King's Centre for Military Health Research, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
Academic Department of Military Mental Health, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
Telemed J E Health. 2023 Jan;29(1):93-101. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2021.0587. Epub 2022 May 11.
The use of digital technology within health care service delivery, monitoring, and research is becoming progressively popular, particularly given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Mobile health (m-health) apps, one form of digital technology, are increasingly being used to promote positive health related behavior change. Therefore, it is important to conduct research to understand the efficacy of m-health apps. The process of participant recruitment is an essential component in producing strong research evidence, along with ensuring an adequately powered sample to conduct meaningful analyses and draw robust conclusions. In this work we outline and reflect on the strategies used to recruit help-seeking military veterans into an intervention study, which aimed to evaluate the efficacy of an app (:Ration) to modify behavior in alcohol misusers. Recruitment strategies included through (1) partner organizations and (2) social media and Facebook advertising (ads). Facebook ads were live for a period of 88 days and were viewed by a total audience of 29,416 people. In total 168 military veterans were recruited across all recruitment strategies, meaning that :Ration exceeded its recruitment targets. Half of the sample (n = 84) were recruited through social media, including Facebook ads. The current article highlighted that targeted Facebook ads were an efficient strategy to recruit military veterans into a digital intervention trial aiming to reduce alcohol consumption because they reduced the amount of time and resources required to contact a large number of potentially eligible individuals for our study. This article acts as a starting point for other researchers to evaluate their recruitment pathways for recruiting military veterans into alcohol misuse research.
在医疗服务提供、监测和研究中，数字技术的应用正变得越来越普遍，特别是考虑到持续的新冠疫情。移动健康（m-health）应用程序作为数字技术的一种形式，越来越多地被用于促进与健康相关的积极行为改变。因此，开展研究以了解移动健康应用程序的功效很重要。参与者招募过程是产生有力研究证据的重要组成部分，同时要确保有足够规模的样本进行有意义的分析并得出可靠的结论。在这项工作中，我们概述并反思了用于招募寻求帮助的退伍军人参与一项干预研究的策略，该研究旨在评估一款应用程序（:Ration）对改变酗酒者行为的功效。招募策略包括通过（1）合作伙伴组织和（2）社交媒体及脸书广告（ads）。脸书广告投放了88天，总浏览量为29416人。通过所有招募策略共招募了168名退伍军人，这意味着:Ration超出了其招募目标。样本的一半（n = 84）是通过社交媒体招募的，包括脸书广告。本文强调，有针对性的脸书广告是将退伍军人招募到旨在减少酒精消费的数字干预试验中的一种有效策略，因为它们减少了为我们的研究联系大量潜在合格个体所需的时间和资源。本文为其他研究人员评估将退伍军人招募到酗酒研究中的招募途径提供了一个起点。
