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Recruiting for health, medical or psychosocial research using Facebook: Systematic review
Open accessAbstract
Recruiting participants is a challenge for many health, medical and psychosocial research projects. One tool more frequently being used to improve recruitment is the social networking website Facebook. A systematic review was conducted to identify studies that have used Facebook to recruit participants of all ages, to any psychosocial, health or medical research. 110 unique studies that used Facebook as a recruitment source were included in the review. The majority of studies used a cross-sectional design (80%) and addressed a physical health or disease issue (57%). Half (49%) of the included studies reported specific details of the Facebook recruitment process. Researchers paid between $1.36 and $110 per completing participants (Mean = $17.48, SD = $23.06). Among studies that examined the representativeness of their sample, the majority concluded (86%) their Facebook-recruited samples were similarly representative of samples recruited via traditional methods. These results indicate that Facebook is an effective and cost-efficient recruitment method. Researchers should consider their target group, advertisement wording, offering incentives and no-cost methods of recruitment when considering Facebook as a recruitment source. It is hoped this review will assist researchers to make decisions regarding the use of Facebook as a recruitment tool in future research. • Health, medical and psychosocial research recruiting participants of all ages via Facebook is reviewed. • Results suggest Facebook is an effective and cost efficient recruitment method. • Results suggest Facebook can be used to obtain samples similarly representative to samples recruited via traditional methods.
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“Samples recruited by Facebook have been found to present similar representativeness to convention methods in achieving age and gender distribution and are usually less costly [53].”
From A mobile health intervention (LifeBuoy App) to help young people manage suicidal thoughts: protocol for a mixed-methods randomized controlled trial (2020) · cites this paper as [53]
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InfluentialAkers, L. G., & Gordon, J. S. (2018) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/jmir.9372 · Cited by 87
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“The sampling method is another limitation, since online sampling has some tradeoffs that may limit the generalizability of this study (Thornton et al., 2016; Topolovec-Vranic & Natarajan, 2016).”
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InfluentialRussomanno, J., Patterson, J. G., & Jabson, J. M. (2019) · JMIR Public Health and Surveillance · doi:10.2196/14886 · Cited by 79
“Given the increased popularity of social media platforms, social science researchers are using social media to recruit participants into health, medical, and psychosocial research studies [4-8].”
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Self-citationFord, K. L., Albritton, T., Dunn, T. A., Crawford, K., Neuwirth, J., & Bull, S. S. (2019) · JMIR Public Health and Surveillance · doi:10.2196/14080 · Cited by 66
“Other Web-based health-related campaigns [5,23,24,29,30] demonstrated similar success in recruiting youth and young adults through Instagram and Facebook [13,22,31], although most cross-sectional studies used Facebook for recruitment [32].”
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“40,41 In Figure 2, we have created four different scenarios.”
Martín-Fernández, M., Gracia, E., Marco, M., Vargas, V., Santirso, F. A., & Lila, M. (2018) · The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context · doi:10.5093/ejpalc2018a3 · Cited by 68
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“By virtue of its widespread use, relative anonymity, cost-effectiveness, and acceptability, FB is an attractive recruitment path (Thornton et al., 2016; Amon et al., 2014; Carter-Harris et al., 2016).”
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Denham, A. M. J., Wynne, O., Baker, A., Spratt, N. J., Turner, A., Magin, P. J., Palazzi, K. L., & Bonevski, B. (2020) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243502 · Cited by 60
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Personality associations with Facebook use and tendencies towards Facebook Use Disorder
Sindermann, C., Duke, É., & Montag, C. (2020) · Addictive Behaviors Reports · doi:10.1016/j.abrep.2020.100264 · Cited by 50
“Therefore, if only recruiting Facebook users, such differences between users and non-users may lead to the publication of data that cannot be generalised beyond the sample of Facebook users (Brickman Bhutta, 2012; Thornton et al., 2016; Whitaker, Stevelink, & Fear, 2017).”
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Personality traits in musicians
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“Social media have also recruitment advantages and are frequently used in empirical research in several fields (Amon, Campbell, Hawke, & Steinbeck, 2014; Thornton et al., 2016).”
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“92) for Facebook recruitment across 18 studies [10].”
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“…is traditionally difficult, online-recruitment has been shown to be promising in clinical and health science to overcome this obstacle (e.g., Morgan et al., 2013; Bevelander et al., 2014; Gioia et al., 2016; Kayrouz et al., 2016; Thornton et al., 2016; Topolovec-Vranic and Natarajan, 2016).”
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“…retention, participant tracing, institutional review board, human research ethics committee, survey research For example, a recent systematic review reported an exponential increase in the use of Facebook to recruit participants in health research over a 6-year period (Thornton et al., 2016).”
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“This was to increase male participants and address the commonly higher ratio of female to male participants in internet-based mental health trial research [43].”
Self-citationAouissi, H. A., Ababsa, M., Leveau, C. M., Alexandru-Ionuţ, P., Słomka, A., Kechebar, M. S. A., Yasuhara, J., Epelboin, L., & Ohmagari, N. (2022) · Healthcare · doi:10.3390/healthcare10071341 · Cited by 34
Stern, M. J., Fordyce, E., Hansen, C., Viox, M. H., Michaels, S., Schlissel, A. C., Avripas, S. A., Harper, C. R., Johns, M. M., & Dunville, R. L. (2020) · LGBT Health · doi:10.1089/lgbt.2019.0311 · Cited by 32
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“While the majority of studies (80%) included in this review were cross-sectional surveys and thus those ad clicks were more likely to convert to active study participation compared to intervention studies that last several weeks to months, Thornton and colleagues [19] findings demonstrate the broad range of fees that…”
BackgroundSocial Media for Tobacco Smoking Cessation Intervention: A Review of the Literature
Thrul, J., Tormohlen, K. N., & Meacham, M. C. (2019) · Current Addiction Reports · doi:10.1007/s40429-019-00246-2 · Cited by 40
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“A total of 2,627 participants were recruited for the present study through online sampling using social media and e-mail snowballing, an effective and cost-efficient sampling method (Thornton et al., 2016; Topolovec-Vranic & Natarajan, 2016).”
Combes, G., Damery, S. L., Gunby, C., Harlock, J., Isham, L., Jones, A., Maxted, F., Parmar, P., Schaub, J., Smith, D., et al. (2019) · BMJ Open · doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035739 · Cited by 29
New dyads? The effect of social robots’ anthropomorphization on empathy towards human beings
Spaccatini, F., Corlito, G., & Sacchi, S. (2023) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2023.107821 · Cited by 31
The inaccuracy of data from online surveys: A cautionary analysis
Agans, J. P., Schade, S. A., Hanna, S. R., Chiang, S., Shirzad, K., & Bai, S. (2023) · Quality & Quantity · doi:10.1007/s11135-023-01733-5 · Cited by 31
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Rayward, A. T., Vandelanotte, C., Corry, K., Itallie, A. K. V., & Duncan, M. J. (2019) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph16245076 · Cited by 31
“It is di ffi cult to compare numbers of impressions between di ff erent social media advertising campaigns since they can vary by overall recruitment timeframe, target audience, advertisement delivery scheduling, and expenditure [10,21].”
BackgroundResultGreen, H., Fernandez, R. S., & MacPhail, C. L. (2021) · JMIR Formative Research · doi:10.2196/28656 · Cited by 29
“The success of these interventions has demonstrated the efficacy of social media as a suitable method for accessing participants [1,5,15-17].”
BackgroundMethodShowen, A., Copp, H. L., Allen, I. E., Baradaran, N., Liaw, A., & Hampson, L. A. (2020) · Urology · doi:10.1016/j.urology.2020.11.016 · Cited by 28
Wang, P., Chen, Y., Chang, Y., Wu, C.-F., Lu, W.-H., & Yen, C. (2021) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph18042091 · Cited by 27
“A systematic review on the study recruiting participants via Facebook reported that there appeared to be a bias towards people with a higher educational level [56].”
BackgroundPerception of adults toward electronic cigarettes: a cross-sectional study from Jordan
Barakat, M. M., Assaf, A. M., Alqudah, R., Thiab, S. H., Alhamed, M., Al-Obaidi, H. J., Jirjees, F., & Basheti, I. A. (2021) · Primary Health Care Research & Development · doi:10.1017/s1463423621000062 · Cited by 27
“However, nowadays in light of the published review (Thornton et al., 2016), the recruitment of a research sample using social media platforms is considered an efficient and cost-effective method.”
BackgroundWallace, V., Honkalampi, K. M., & Sheils, E. (2021) · Journal of Pediatric Nursing · doi:10.1016/j.pedn.2021.02.016 · Cited by 30
Ethical Issues in Social Media Recruitment for Clinical Studies: Ethical Analysis and Framework
Zimmermann, B. M., Willem, T., Bredthauer, C. J., & Buyx, A. (2021) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/31231 · Cited by 27
“Although the ability of many social media platforms to direct study advertisements toward defined target groups can be useful in addressing unknown patients, it is unclear how the underlying algorithms choose members of the target group [13,119].”
Goldman, N., Willem, T., Buyx, A., & Zimmermann, B. M. (2023) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/44587 · Cited by 26
“…to distribute their web-based surveys, which is in line with other literature on the benefits of social media recruitment for nonclinical studies [9-11 , In addition, some clinicians believed that social media recruitment would not yield representative samples most likely because clinical…”
Educating children and adolescents about vaccines: a review of current literature
Maisonneuve, A. R., Witteman, H. O., Brehaut, J., Dubé, È., & Wilson, K. R. (2018) · Expert Review of Vaccines · doi:10.1080/14760584.2018.1456921 · Cited by 26
Lee, S., Torok, M. H., Shand, F., Chen, N. A., McGillivray, L., Burnett, A., Larsen, M. E., & Mok, K. (2020) · JMIR Mental Health · doi:10.2196/18762 · Cited by 27
“Characteristics or populations that were most often reported to be overrepresented included younger participants [9,21,22], women [15,23], and those who were well educated [8,21,24].”
BackgroundInfluentialIsetti, G., Ferraretto, V., Stawinoga, A. E., Gruber, M., & Valle, N. D. (2020) · Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives · doi:10.1016/j.trip.2020.100148 · Cited by 25
Barnes, L. A. J., Barclay, L. M., McCaffery, K. J., Rolfe, M. I., & Aslani, P. (2020) · Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy · doi:10.1016/j.sapharm.2020.07.011 · Cited by 25
A Mapping Study on the Internet and Suicide
Krysinska, K. E., Westerlund, M., Niederkrotenthaler, T., Andriessen, K., Carli, V., Hadlaczky, G., Till, B., & Wasserman, D. (2017) · Crisis · doi:10.1027/0227-5910/a000444 · Cited by 24
Vegara-Ferri, J. M., Pallarés, J. G., & Sánchez, S. A. (2021) · European Sport Management Quarterly · doi:10.1080/16184742.2021.1903526 · Cited by 24
“and economy than other traditional methods (Thornton et al., 2016).”
MethodFacebook recruitment for research of children and parents during the COVID-19 pandemic
Skeens, M. A., Sutherland-Foggio, M. S., Damman, C., Gerhardt, C. A., & Akard, T. F. (2022) · Applied Nursing Research · doi:10.1016/j.apnr.2022.151574 · Cited by 24
Basking in detected vice: Outgroup immorality enhances self-view
Sacchi, S., Brambilla, M., & Graupmann, V. (2020) · Group Processes & Intergroup Relations · doi:10.1177/1368430219895320 · Cited by 23
“However, as noted by Thornton et al. (2016), characteristics (e.g., gender, age, education) of samples recruited via Facebook are frequently unbalanced and there is a lack of environmental control during administration.”
BackgroundLeong, V., Raheel, K., Sim, J. Y., Kacker, K., Karlaftis, V. M., Vassiliu, C., Kalaivanan, K., Chen, S. A., Robbins, T. W., Sahakian, B. J., et al. (2021) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/28368 · Cited by 26
“Purely unsupervised web-based testing has the attendant advantages of reaching large sample sizes with a broad demographic at a relatively low cost per head [34,49,54,56-58].”
The use of Facebook for virtual asynchronous focus groups in qualitative research
Biedermann, N. (2017) · Contemporary Nurse · doi:10.1080/10376178.2017.1386072 · Cited by 23
“Indeed, a recent systematic review of studies that have used Facebook as a tool for study recruitment identified 110 unique studies (Thornton et al., 2016).”
BackgroundAhmed, K. L., Simon, A. R., Dempsey, J. R., Samaco, R. C., & Goin‐Kochel, R. P. (2020) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/16752 · Cited by 22
“36 to $110 per completed participant [3].”
BackgroundPotential of Online Recruitment Among 15-25-Year Olds: Feasibility Randomized Controlled Trial
Hoffmann, S. H., Folker, A. P., Buskbjerg, M., Folker, M. P., Jezek, A. H., Svartá, D. L., Sølvhøj, I. N., & Thygesen, L. C. (2022) · JMIR Formative Research · doi:10.2196/35874 · Cited by 22
Wawrziczny, É., Duprez, C., & Antoine, P. (2020) · Psychogeriatrics · doi:10.1111/psyg.12553 · Cited by 22
Crawford, S. B., Hokke, S., Nicholson, J. M., Zion, L., Lucke, J. C., Keyzer, P., & Hackworth, N. J. (2018) · Internet Research · doi:10.1108/intr-07-2017-0278 · Cited by 21
Nguyen, K. T., & Shaw, L. (2019) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2019.109615 · Cited by 29
Pechmann, C., Phillips, C., Calder, D., & Prochaska, J. J. (2020) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/17554 · Cited by 20
Venesoja, A., Lindström, V., Aronen, P., Castrén, M. K., & Tella, S. (2021) · Scandinavian Journal of Trauma Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine · doi:10.1186/s13049-021-00960-9 · Cited by 21
Borodovsky, J. T. (2022) · Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology · doi:10.1037/pha0000581 · Cited by 27
Mojica‐Perez, Y., Livingston, M., Pennay, A. E., & Callinan, S. (2022) · Addictive Behaviors · doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2022.107439 · Cited by 21
Like, comment, tag, share: Facebook interactions in health research
Obamiro, K. O., West, S., & Lee, S. (2020) · International Journal of Medical Informatics · doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2020.104097 · Cited by 21
Northcott, C., Curtis, R., Bogomolova, S., Olds, T., Vandelanotte, C., Plotnikoff, R. C., & Maher, C. A. (2021) · Translational Behavioral Medicine · doi:10.1093/tbm/ibaa139 · Cited by 21
Han, J., McGillivray, L., Wong, Q. J., Werner-Seidler, A., Wong, I., Calear, A., Christensen, H., & Torok, M. (2020) · JMIR Research Protocols · doi:10.2196/23655 · Cited by 17
“Samples recruited by Facebook have been found to present similar representativeness to convention methods in achieving age and gender distribution and are usually less costly [53].”
MethodSelf-citationCaregiver Burden Among Those Caring for Patients With Spina Bifida
Sadighian, M. J., Allen, I. E., Quanstrom, K., Breyer, B. N., Suskind, A. M., Baradaran, N., Copp, H. L., & Hampson, L. A. (2021) · Urology · doi:10.1016/j.urology.2021.03.020 · Cited by 20
Schwab, R. M., Stewen, K., Kottmann, T., Anić, K., Schmidt, M. W., Elger, T., Theis, S., Kalb, S. R., Brenner, W., & Hasenburg, A. (2022) · Journal of Clinical Medicine · doi:10.3390/jcm11133684 · Cited by 21
“However, a recent systematic review confirmed that samples recruited by Facebook were as representative as samples recruited via traditional methods [77].”
BackgroundThe link between self‐compassion and psychotic‐like experiences: A matter of distress?
Scheunemann, J., Schlier, B., Ascone, L., & Lincoln, T. M. (2018) · Psychology and Psychotherapy Theory Research and Practice · doi:10.1111/papt.12193 · Cited by 22
Bortolon, C., & Raffard, S. (2019) · Cognitive Neuropsychiatry · doi:10.1080/13546805.2019.1670152 · Cited by 19
“that Facebook is an effective and cost-efficient recruitment method to obtain representative samples (Thornton et al., 2016).”
MethodMackenzie, E., Berger, N., Holmes, K., & Walker, M. (2020) · Research Ethics · doi:10.1177/1747016120963160 · Cited by 19
“This gender imbalance has been observed as a common recruitment bias in Facebook recruitment (Thornton et al., 2016), and future studies should consider how advertisements and images engage girls and boys differently.”
BackgroundMayson, S. E., & Bardoel, A. (2021) · Gender Work and Organization · doi:10.1111/gwao.12659 · Cited by 19
MacDermod, C. M., Pettie, M. A., Carrino, E. A., Garcia, S. C., Padalecki, S., Finch, J. E., Sanzari, C. M., Kennedy, H., Pawar, P. S., Mcgough, M. M., et al. (2022) · American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B Neuropsychiatric Genetics · doi:10.1002/ajmg.b.32906 · Cited by 19
“More broadly, a systematic review suggested that Facebook is an effective and cost-efficient recruitment method to enroll participants of all ages, to any psychosocial, health, or medical research (Thornton et al., 2016).”
BackgroundSelf-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Thornton, L., Batterham, P. J., Fassnacht, D. B., Kay-Lambkin, F., Calear, A. L., & Hunt, S.
- Affiliations
- UNSW Sydney (AU)
- Australian National University (AU)
- Venue
- Internet Interventions
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2016-05
- Volume
- 4
- Pages
- 72-81
- ISSN
- 2214-7829 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6096238
- OpenAlex
- W2282737262
- Cited by
- 326
- References
- 115
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 59 · 2021: 57 · 2020: 50 · 2019: 32 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 4.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Internet Interventions (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- NOVA (University of Newcastle Australia) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of New South Wales
- National Health and Medical Research Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Survey Methodology and Nonresponse
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Ethics in Clinical Research
- Keywords
- Facebook, participant recruitment, social networking sites, online recruitment, recruitment incentives, sample representativeness, health research, medical research, psychosocial research
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