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Performance, Cost-Effectiveness, and Representativeness of Facebook Recruitment to Suicide Prevention Research: Online Survey Study.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Researchers are increasingly using social media advertisements to recruit participants because of their many advantages over traditional methods. Although there is growing evidence for the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of social media recruitment in the health sciences, no studies have yet examined this in the context of suicide prevention, which remains to be a highly stigmatized and sensitive topic. OBJECTIVE:This study aims to recruit a general community sample to complete a survey on suicide literacy, stigma, and risk via Facebook advertisements. Specifically, we aim to establish the performance of the advertisements, cost-effectiveness, sample representativeness, and the impact of gender-specific advertising on recruiting men into the study. METHODS:From June 2017 to March 2019, we released Facebook advertisements targeted at adults 18 years or older, residing in the New South Wales (NSW) trial or control regions, and involved in the LifeSpan suicide prevention trial. Cost-effectiveness was examined descriptively using metrics provided by Facebook. Chi-square analyses were conducted to determine demographic differences between our sample and the general NSW population as well as the impact of gender-specific advertisements on gender engagement. RESULTS:The 14 Facebook advertisement campaigns reached a total of 675,199 people, yielding 25,993 link clicks and resulting in 9603 individuals initiating the survey (7487 completions) at an overall cost of Aus $2.81 (US $2.01) per participant. There was an overrepresentation of younger (P=.003), female (P=.003), highly educated (P<.001) participants and mental health conditions (P<.001) compared with the total NSW population. The use of male-specific advertisements resulted in a significantly higher proportion of men completing the survey relative to gender-neutral advertisements (38.2% vs 24.6%; P<.001). CONCLUSIONS:This study demonstrates the potential of Facebook to be an effective, low-cost strategy for recruiting a large sample of general community participants for suicide prevention research. Strategies to improve sample representativeness warrant further investigation in future research.

SUBMITTER: Lee S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7644381 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Performance, Cost-Effectiveness, and Representativeness of Facebook Recruitment to Suicide Prevention Research: Online Survey Study.

Lee Sylvia S Torok Michelle M Shand Fiona F Chen Nicola N McGillivray Lauren L Burnett Alexander A Larsen Mark Erik ME Mok Katherine K

JMIR mental health 20201022 10

<h4>Background</h4>Researchers are increasingly using social media advertisements to recruit participants because of their many advantages over traditional methods. Although there is growing evidence for the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of social media recruitment in the health sciences, no studies have yet examined this in the context of suicide prevention, which remains to be a highly stigmatized and sensitive topic.<h4>Objective</h4>This study aims to recruit a general community sampl ...[more]

PMID: 33090115

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Project description:BackgroundVeteran research has primarily been conducted with clinical samples and those already involved in health care systems, but much is to be learned about veterans in the community. Facebook is a novel yet largely unexplored avenue for recruiting veteran participants for epidemiological and clinical studies.ObjectiveIn this study, we utilized Facebook to recruit a sample of young adult veterans for the first phase of an online alcohol intervention study. We describe the successful Facebook recruitment process, including data collection from over 1000 veteran participants in approximately 3 weeks, procedures to verify participation eligibility, and comparison of our sample with nationally available norms.MethodsParticipants were young adult veterans aged 18-34 recruited through Facebook as part of a large study to document normative drinking behavior among a large community sample of veterans. Facebook ads were targeted toward young veterans to collect information on demographics and military characteristics, health behaviors, mental health, and health care utilization.ResultsWe obtained a sample of 1023 verified veteran participants over a period of 24 days for the advertising price of approximately US $7.05 per verified veteran participant. Our recruitment strategy yielded a sample similar to the US population of young adult veterans in most demographic areas except for race/ethnicity and previous branch of service, which when we weighted the sample on race/ethnicity and branch a sample better matched with the population data was obtained. The Facebook sample recruited veterans who were engaged in a variety of risky health behaviors such as binge drinking and marijuana use. One fourth of veterans had never since discharge been to an appointment for physical health care and about half had attended an appointment for service compensation review. Only half had attended any appointment for a mental health concern at any clinic or hospital. Despite more than half screening positive for current probable mental health disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, only about 1 in 3 received mental health care in the past year and only 1 in 50 received such care within the past month.ConclusionsThis work expands on the work of other studies that have examined clinical samples of veterans only and suggests Facebook can be an adequate method of obtaining samples of veterans in need of care.Trial registrationClinicaltrials.gov NCT02187887; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02187887 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6YiUKRsXY).

Project description:A scoping review of systematic reviews was carried out to identify evidence of efficacy, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of universal and selective suicide prevention programs among university students worldwide. Five databases were reviewed using terms in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The following were the inclusion criteria: systematic review or meta-analysis or meta-synthesis, suicide prevention in college students, evaluation of the efficacy, effectiveness and/or cost-effectiveness of interventions, and peer-reviewed studies. The quality of reviews was assessed. The field of study features three decades of publication in high-income countries. The strategy used, the components of the program, and the target audience to which they are delivered interfere with efficacy. In the psychoeducation strategy, the experiential and didactic components are more efficacious in the knowledge about suicide. And the motivational enhancement component promotes greater self-efficacy in suicide prevention. Programs that take a multimodal approach are effective in increasing short-term attitudes related to suicide and reducing rates of completed suicide. The gatekeeper strategy delivered to peer counselors is the most effective one in the outcomes, including short-term and long-term knowledge about suicide and its prevention and self-efficacy in suicide prevention. A greater number of evaluated studies of gatekeeper interventions were identified, indicating a trend in this research field. No review addressed the effects on subgroups that were classified based on sex, racial or sexual minorities, and special (indigenous) populations. Only one study addressed cost-effectiveness, pointing out that the psychoeducation and gatekeeper strategies have relevant net benefit rates, but the gatekeeper strategy has a higher cost-benefit ratio compared to the psychoeducation strategy. The findings indicate that psychoeducation and gatekeeper interventions tend to be more efficacious when they combine education and skills training to intervene in suicidal behavior. The components of the intervention and the target audience to which it is delivered influence efficacy. Multimodal interventions evaluate completed suicide outcomes, but require greater implementation efforts, in terms of human and financial resources and more time for the evaluation.

Project description:BACKGROUND:People who are at elevated risk of suicide stand to benefit from internet-based interventions; however, research in this area is likely impacted by a range of ethical and practical challenges. The aim of this study was to examine the ethical issues and practical barriers associated with clinical studies of internet-based interventions for suicide prevention. METHOD:This was a mixed-methods study involving two phases. First, a systematic search was conducted to identify studies evaluating internet-based interventions for people at risk of suicide, and information pertaining to safety protocols and exclusion criteria was extracted. Second, investigators on the included studies were invited to complete an online survey comprising open-ended and forced-choice responses. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyse the data. RESULTS:The literature search identified 18 eligible studies, of which three excluded participants based on severity of suicide risk. Half of the 15 suicide researchers who participated in the survey had experienced problems obtaining ethics approval, and none had encountered adverse events attributed to their intervention. Survey respondents noted the difficulty of managing risk in online environments and the limitations associated with implementing safety protocols, although some also reported increased confidence resulting from the ethical review process. Respondents recommended researchers pursue a collaborative relationship with their research ethics committees. CONCLUSION:There is a balance to be achieved between the need to minimise the risk of adverse events whilst also ensuring interventions are being validated on populations who may be most likely to use and benefit from them (i.e., those who prefer anonymity). Further research is required to obtain the views of research ethics committees and research participants on these issues. Dialogue between researchers and ethics committees is necessary to address the need to ensure safety while also advancing the timely development of effective interventions in this critical area.

Dataset Information

Performance, Cost-Effectiveness, and Representativeness of Facebook Recruitment to Suicide Prevention Research: Online Survey Study.

Publications

Performance, Cost-Effectiveness, and Representativeness of Facebook Recruitment to Suicide Prevention Research: Online Survey Study.

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