JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Social media applications platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are being increasingly utilised to deliver public health interventions. Despite the high-level of research interest, there is no consensus or guidance on how to report social media interventions. Reporting guidelines which incorporate elements from behaviour change theories and social media engagement frameworks could foster more robust evaluations that capture outcomes demonstrating impact on behaviour change and engagement.

Objective:

The aim of this project is to develop, publish and promote a list of reporting guidelines for the social media research (RESOME).

Methods:

RESOME guidelines will be developed by using a modified Delphi approach, where two rounds of questionnaires are sent to experts and stakeholders asking them to rate their agreement with a series of statements until a level of consensus is reached, followed by a virtual consensus meeting to finalise the reporting guidelines. After the consensus meeting, the reporting guidelines will be written up in the form of a paper outlining the need for the new guideline, how the guidelines were developed, along with the finalised checklist for reporting. Prior to publication, we will pilot the guidelines to check for understanding and simplify the language used if necessary.

Results:

The first draft of the RESOME reporting guidelines have been developed with the Delphi method to be carried out in June and July of 2021. As of May 2021, this study has been approved by the UCL Ethics committee (ID:14687/004).

Conclusions:

Developing reporting guidelines for social media research will contribute to improved reporting and will make it easier to assess effectiveness of social media interventions. Future work will be needed to evaluate usefulness and practicality.