TY - JOUR
T1 - Recruitment of community college students into a web-assisted tobacco intervention study
AU - McIntosh, Scott
AU - Johnson, Tye
AU - Wall, Andrew F.
AU - Prokhorov, Alexander V.
AU - Calabro, Karen Sue
AU - Ververs, Duncan
AU - Assibey-Mensah, Vanessa
AU - Ossip, Deborah J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Scott McIntosh, Tye Johnson, Andrew F Wall, Alexander V Prokhorov, Karen Sue Calabro, Duncan Ververs, Vanessa Assibey-Mensah, Deborah J Ossip. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org),08.05.2017. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Research Protocols, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.researchprotocols.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
PY - 2017/5
Y1 - 2017/5
N2 - Background: United States college students, particularly those attending community colleges, have higher smoking rates than the national average. Recruitment of such smokers into research studies has not been studied in depth, despite a moderate amount information on study recruitment success with smokers from traditional four-year colleges. Recruitment channels and success are evolving as technology evolves, so it is important to understand how to best target, implement, and evaluate recruitment strategies. Objective: The aim of this paper is to both qualitatively and quantitatively explore recruitment channels (eg, mass email, in-person referral, posted materials) and their success with enrollment into a Web-Assisted Tobacco Intervention study in this priority population of underserved and understudied smokers. Methods: Qualitative research methods included key informant interviews (n=18) and four focus groups (n=37). Quantitative research methods included observed online responsiveness to any channel (n=10,914), responses from those completing online screening and study consent (n=2696), and responses to a baseline questionnaire from the fully enrolled study participants (n=1452). Results: Qualitative results prior to recruitment provided insights regarding the selection of a variety of recruitment channels proposed to be successful, and provided context for the unique attributes of the study sample. Quantitative analysis of self-reported channels used to engage with students, and to enroll participants into the study, revealed the relative utilization of channels at several recruitment points. The use of mass emails to the student body was reported by the final sample as the most influential channel, accounting for 60.54% (879/1452) of the total enrolled sample. Conclusions: Relative channel efficiency was analyzed across a wide variety of channels. One primary channel (mass emails) and a small number of secondary channels (including college websites and learning management systems) accounted for most of the recruitment success.
AB - Background: United States college students, particularly those attending community colleges, have higher smoking rates than the national average. Recruitment of such smokers into research studies has not been studied in depth, despite a moderate amount information on study recruitment success with smokers from traditional four-year colleges. Recruitment channels and success are evolving as technology evolves, so it is important to understand how to best target, implement, and evaluate recruitment strategies. Objective: The aim of this paper is to both qualitatively and quantitatively explore recruitment channels (eg, mass email, in-person referral, posted materials) and their success with enrollment into a Web-Assisted Tobacco Intervention study in this priority population of underserved and understudied smokers. Methods: Qualitative research methods included key informant interviews (n=18) and four focus groups (n=37). Quantitative research methods included observed online responsiveness to any channel (n=10,914), responses from those completing online screening and study consent (n=2696), and responses to a baseline questionnaire from the fully enrolled study participants (n=1452). Results: Qualitative results prior to recruitment provided insights regarding the selection of a variety of recruitment channels proposed to be successful, and provided context for the unique attributes of the study sample. Quantitative analysis of self-reported channels used to engage with students, and to enroll participants into the study, revealed the relative utilization of channels at several recruitment points. The use of mass emails to the student body was reported by the final sample as the most influential channel, accounting for 60.54% (879/1452) of the total enrolled sample. Conclusions: Relative channel efficiency was analyzed across a wide variety of channels. One primary channel (mass emails) and a small number of secondary channels (including college websites and learning management systems) accounted for most of the recruitment success.
KW - Baseline
KW - Community colleges
KW - Qualitative research
KW - Study recruitment
KW - Tobacco control
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U2 - 10.2196/resprot.6485
DO - 10.2196/resprot.6485
M3 - Article
C2 - 28483741
AN - SCOPUS:85047146600
SN - 1929-0748
VL - 6
JO - JMIR Research Protocols
JF - JMIR Research Protocols
IS - 5
M1 - e79
ER -