Leveraging Social Media and Crowdsourcing to Recruit and Retain Military Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder or Experience of Harmful Gambling for mHealth Interventions : Descriptive Study

Abstract

Background: Military veterans may be at increased risk of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared to the general population. PTSD is often comorbid with harmful and problematic patterns of gambling. Behavioral therapies such as acceptance and commitment therapy have shown promise in treating these co-occurring disorders, especially if combined with mobile health (mHealth) interventions to circumvent known help-seeking barriers faced by veterans. However, to date, recruitment for mHealth interventions has been challenging and may impact intervention feasibility. Objective: In this paper, our objectives were to describe the strategies used to recruit UK military veterans with PTSD or experience of harmful gambling to a pilot study of a smartphone-based digital intervention, ACT Vet. Methods: We used several recruitment strategies, such as direct mailing, paid study advertising on social media (Facebook) and an online research platform (Prolific), study-specific website management, in-person event hosting with veterans’ charities, snowball sampling, and incentives for completion. Results: Results showed that, over 27 days, recruitment through Facebook accounted for 21 eligible veterans (n=7, 33% through unpaid advertising and n=14, 67% through paid advertising), whereas Prolific accounted for 50 veterans. Additional strategies recruited 8 eligible veterans. In total, 79 eligible military veterans were recruited for ACT Vet, with 24 (30%) completing the final steps of the study. Conclusions: Difficulties such as low advertisement conversion rate and participant and data attrition arose throughout this study. Our findings illustrate the relative effectiveness of social media– and online platform–based initiatives in recruiting veterans with PTSD or harmful gambling. Future research should consider establishing an online presence for effective digital intervention recruitment with diverse branding to attract representative samples of veterans for mHealth research.