Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Feb 28, 2022
Date Accepted: Oct 13, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Using Social Media to Engage Justice-Involved Young Adults in Digital Health Interventions for Substance Use: A Pilot Feasibility Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Justice-involved young adults have high rates of substance use disorders. Despite the need for treatment, there are unique challenges to recruiting young adults into substance use treatment trials. Digital health technology offers many novel avenues for 1) recruiting justice-involved young adults into clinical research studies and 2) studying ways to increase access to substance use services for justice-involved young adults.
Objective:
The current study describes the process and feasibility of recruiting justice-involved young adults into clinical research using social media and the acceptability of digital health interventions to address substance use in this population.
Methods:
Justice-involved young adults (ages 18-24) were recruited through Facebook ($0.66 per click) and Reddit ($0.47 per click) paid advertisements. Participants responded to an online survey focused on their substance use, treatment utilization history, and acceptability of substance-use focused digital health interventions.
Results:
A national sample of justice-involved young adults were successfully enrolled and completed the survey (N=131). More than half of participants were on probation or parole in the past year (55%) and reported hazardous alcohol (52%) or drug (57%) use. Most (78%) were not currently participating in substance use treatment. Nearly 2/3 (63%) were willing to participate in one or more hypothetical digital health interventions.
Conclusions:
Social media appears to be a feasible and cost-effective method for reaching justice-involved young adults to participate in substance use research trials. Proposed digital health interventions focusing on reducing substance use had high acceptability
Citation
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