JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Recruiting participants into clinical trials continues to be a challenge, resulting in study delay or termination. Recent studies have used social media to enhance recruitment outcomes. An assessment of the literature on the use of social media for this purpose is required.

Objective:

This study aims to answer the following questions: (1) How is the use of social media along with traditional methods to enhance clinical trial recruitment represented in the literature? (2) Do the data on recruitment and enrollment outcomes presented in the literature allow for comparison across studies?

Methods:

We conducted a comprehensive literature search across 7 platforms to identify clinical trials that combined social media and traditional methods to recruit patients. Study and participant characteristics, recruitment methods, and recruitment outcomes were evaluated and compared.

Results:

We identified 2,371 titles and abstracts through our systematic search. Of these, we assessed 95 full articles and determined 33 studies met the inclusion criteria. Seventeen studies reported enrollment outcomes, of which 9 achieved or exceeded their enrollment target. The proportion of participants enrolled from social media in these studies ranged from 0-49%. Across all 33 studies, the proportion of participants recruited and enrolled from social media varied greatly. Eight studies reported higher enrollment rates from social media than any other methods. Four studies reported lowest cost per enrolled participant from social media.

Conclusions:

Social media use as a tool to improve recruitment and enrollment outcomes currently lacks reporting standards. In evaluating benefits from using social media to augment or replace traditional methods, future studies must adopt consistent reporting of recruitment and enrollment outcomes to facilitate valid comparisons of social media and traditional methods. Clinical Trial: This scoping review is registered at Open Science Framework.