Recruiting custodial grandmothers using Facebook

Recruitment through Facebook is gaining favor as an approach for research, including clinical trials, because of the platform's ability to reach broad and diverse populations. As older adults increase their social media use, recruitment through Facebook has become a viable option. The purposes of this paper are to report the methodological process and lessons learned from recruiting custodial grandmothers (CGMs) for a cross-sectional study examining parenting self-efficacy and psychological well-being.

A total of 113 people consented and accessed the survey online, with 40 (35.4%) completing surveys. The final sample comprised 68 grandmothers, with 59% recruited via Facebook.

Facebook recruitment for the online survey included creating a dedicated Facebook study page, accessing existing Facebook pages for custodial grandparents, and using paid advertising. Face-to-face recruitment strategies also were used with paper surveys.

We compared the characteristics of those completing online surveys versus paper surveys. CGMs completing the survey online were significantly younger and more likely to be Caucasian than those completing the paper survey.

Findings indicated online recruitment via Facebook is an advantageous method to reach CGMs. However, additional research is needed to determine if other online and social media platforms would be useful in recruiting this population.