Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2015) 38 SK2.5 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.38.SK2.5

SFEBES2015 Skills Skills 2: Early Career Symposium: Effective communication: get involved, get engaged! (6 abstracts)

Making social media work for promoting and recruiting to research studies

Victoria Parker


WT-MRC IMS-MRL, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, Cambridge, UK.


Recruitment to research studies to meet sample quality, size, and power requirements may be challenging, with underrepresentation of specific gender, age or ethnic groups being a common source of bias within research. Social media are defined as web-based applications that enable creation and exchange of user generated content. Facebook, one of the most renowned social networking interfaces currently has 1.44 billion users worldwide, and cross-sectional studies of user demography suggest a remarkably equal uptake across different ethnic, socioeconomic classes and gender groups. The use of social media in research studies thus provides opportunity to engage and recruit large numbers of eligible participants from diverse populations, at any time, and from potentially anywhere in the world. Furthermore, social networking sites create a valuable conduit for patient and public involvement (PPI) within research and science, but their use should be carefully balanced with the unavoidable loss of confidentiality and anonymity which is inherent in the use of such applications.

Volume 38

Society for Endocrinology BES 2015

Edinburgh, UK
02 Nov 2015 - 04 Nov 2015

Society for Endocrinology 

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