Alshaikh, F., Ramzan, F., Rawaf, S., & Majeed, A. (2014). Social network sites as a mode to collect health data: A systematic review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16(7), e171. doi: eIuZC3lU. PMID: 2504824.
In this article, the authors conducted a systematic review of studies using social network sites (SNS) to collect data for health research. After searching three major medical databases, the authors found ten studies using SNS to gather data. Studies using SNS to give interventions to participants were excluded from this review. The authors found that studies used a variety of techniques to enroll participants through SNS. These methods included using SNS to advertise online surveys, studying content of discussions in SNS chat rooms, and monitoring Facebook pages. Next, the authors examined the quality of data collected through SNS. Overall, data quality was good. Although initial response to participation requests was low, completion rates of surveys was acceptable and ranged from 76% to 93.5%. Recruiting participants through SNS was cheaper than traditional recruitment techniques and could be done rapidly. The authors also found that collecting data through SNS sites allowed easy access to certain populations, including young people and hard-to-reach groups. Unfortunately, self-selection bias was an issue for studies using SNS to collect health data. Because participants on SNS can choose whether to participate, data collected from SNS may not always be generalizable to the population of interest. Overall, results of this study support the use of SNS to collect data for health research.