Recruiting Pregnant Patients for Survey Research: A Head to Head Comparison of Social Media-Based Versus Clinic-Based Approaches

Abstract

Background: Recruiting a diverse sample of pregnant women for clinical research is a challenging but crucial task for improving obstetric services and maternal and child health outcomes.

Objective: To compare the feasibility and cost of recruiting pregnant women for survey research using social media-based and clinic-based approaches.

Methods: Advertisements were used to recruit pregnant women from the social media website Facebook. In-person methods were used to recruit pregnant women from the outpatient clinic of a large, tertiary care center. In both approaches, potential respondents were invited to participate in a 15-minute Web-based survey. Each recruitment method was monitored for 1 month. Using bivariate statistics, we compared the number, demographic characteristics, and health characteristics of women recruited and the cost per completed survey for each recruitment method.

Results: The social media-based approach recruited 1178 women and the clinic-based approach recruited 219 women. A higher proportion of subjects recruited through social media identified as African American (29.4%, 207/705 vs 11.2%, 20/179), reported household incomes <US $30,000 per year (56.8%, 409/720 vs 25.8%, 47/182), reported being in early pregnancy (18.6%, 135/726 vs 10.4%, 19/183 first trimester), and rated their health as fair or poor (22.2%, 160/722 vs 8.2%, 15/183; all P<.001). A smaller proportion of subjects recruited through social media had earned a college degree (21.3%, 153/717 vs 62.3%, 114/183) and were married or in a domestic partnership (45.7%, 330/722 vs 72.1%, 132/183; all P<.001). Social media-based recruitment costs were US $14.63 per completed survey, compared with US $23.51 for clinic-based recruitment.

Conclusions: Web-based recruitment through a social networking platform is a feasible, inexpensive, and rapid means of recruiting a large, diverse sample of pregnant women for survey research.

Keywords: methods; pregnant women; social media; surveys and questionnaires.

Figure 1

Sample Facebook advertisement used for social media–based recruitment of pregnant women.

Figure 2

Flow diagram of inclusion, exclusion, and dropout of pregnant women recruited via social media–based compared to clinic-based approaches.

Figure 3

Cost per completed survey among pregnant women recruited via social media–based compared to clinic-based approaches.