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Insights into Facebook Pages: an early adolescent health research study page targeted at parents

  • Krestina L. Amon EMAIL logo , Karen Paxton , Emily Klineberg , Lisa Riley , Catherine Hawke and Katharine Steinbeck
Published/Copyright: March 12, 2015

Abstract

Facebook has been used in health research, but there is a lack of literature regarding how Facebook may be used to recruit younger adolescents. A Facebook Page was created for an adolescent cohort study on the effects of puberty hormones on well-being and behaviour in early adolescence. Used as a communication tool with existing participants, it also aimed to alert potential participants to the study. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the development of the study Facebook Page and present the fan response to the types of posts made on the Page using the Facebook-generated Insights data. Two types of posts were made on the study Facebook Page. The first type was study-related update posts and events. The second was relevant adolescent and family research and current news posts. Observations on the use of and response to the Page were made over 1 year across three phases (phase 1, very low Facebook use; phase 2, high Facebook use; phase 3, low Facebook use). Most Page fans were female (88.6%), with the largest group of fans aged between 35 and 44 years. Study-related update posts with photographs were the most popular. This paper provides a model on which other researchers could base Facebook communication and potential recruitment in the absence of established guidelines.


Corresponding author: Krestina L. Amon, PhD, Faculty of Health Sciences, Cumberland Campus C42, The University of Sydney, PO Box 170, Lidcombe NSW 1825, Australia, Phone: +61 2 9351 9994; E-mail:

Acknowledgments

The ARCHER study is supported by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Project Grant #1003312.

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Received: 2014-10-22
Accepted: 2015-1-1
Published Online: 2015-3-12
Published in Print: 2016-2-1

©2016 by De Gruyter

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