Perez-Heydrich Carlos, Walker Courtney, Pile Macie, Agrawal Yuri
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Division of Otology, Neurotology, and Skull Base Surgery, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Digit Health. 2024 Jan 27;10:20552076241229164. doi: 10.1177/20552076241229164. eCollection 2024 Jan-Dec.
Clinical trials studying Alzheimer's Disease (AD) face the challenge of recruiting participants with significant barriers to entering research studies. The objective of this study is to compare digital recruitment strategies' ability to recruit older adults with cognitive impairment (CI).
Older adults with CI were recruited for a clinical trial studying vestibular therapy in reducing falls and improving balance and cognition in older adults with CI. Potential participants were recruited via two different digital recruitment methods, a direct messaging campaign using established patient records and a social media campaign. Potential participants then filled out surveys to determine eligibility for the study.
The direct messaging campaign contacted 3060 potential participants and the social media campaign resulted in 8265 instances of unique engagement. Of the number of people reached, the direct messaging campaign had a higher percentage of people who submitted the survey compared to the social media campaign (8.3% vs. 1.2%, p < 0.001). There was no significant difference in age, race, ethnicity, education, household income, and insurance status between the recruitment groups (p > 0.05). Direct messaging recruitment proved more cost-effective at $21.74 per eligible participant compared to the social media campaign at $859.58 per eligible participant.
This study found that direct messaging recruitment using established patient records was more cost-effective compared to social media recruitment for this clinical trial. In this sample size, similar demographics were reached by both recruitment methods. Future studies should continue to explore the use of social media and alternative methods to recruit representative participant populations for ongoing AD research.
研究阿尔茨海默病（AD）的临床试验面临着招募参与者的挑战，这些参与者在进入研究时有重大障碍。本研究的目的是比较数字招募策略招募有认知障碍（CI）的老年人的能力。
招募有CI的老年人参加一项关于前庭治疗对降低CI老年人跌倒风险、改善平衡和认知能力的临床试验。通过两种不同的数字招募方法招募潜在参与者，一种是使用已建立的患者记录进行直接信息推送活动，另一种是社交媒体活动。潜在参与者随后填写调查问卷以确定是否符合研究资格。
直接信息推送活动联系了3060名潜在参与者，社交媒体活动产生了8265次独特参与。在所接触的人群中，直接信息推送活动提交调查问卷的人数比例高于社交媒体活动（8.3%对1.2%，p<0.001）。招募组之间在年龄、种族、民族、教育程度、家庭收入和保险状况方面没有显著差异（p>0.05）。直接信息推送招募被证明更具成本效益，每位符合条件参与者为21.74美元，而社交媒体活动每位符合条件参与者为859.58美元。
本研究发现，对于该临床试验，使用已建立的患者记录进行直接信息推送招募比社交媒体招募更具成本效益。在这个样本量中，两种招募方法接触到的人口统计学特征相似。未来的研究应继续探索使用社交媒体和替代方法来招募具有代表性的参与者群体，以进行正在进行的AD研究。
