Recruiting participants on social media

[Adelaide9216]

Hello,

so my REB application has been approved. In it, I mentioned wanting to recruit on the following social media : Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. I started sharing my poster for recruitment, and I am realizing that it makes me very anxious for confidentiality of participants. I specifically asked people to contact me directly through my institutional email to preserve the confidentiality of interested people as much as possible. However, dome people are tagging other people who could potentially be interested in participating in my study and it makes me feel anxious. It's my first time doing this. Am I worried for nothing? 

[Meraki]

I would normally say this is not a problem; however, if my memory serves me well, you are studying a population of people with a specific experience that they may not want others to know about - is this correct? For example, if you're studying survivors of domestic or sexual abuse, I could see it being a problem if people are tagging friends who have been abused because they're essentially calling them out. I can't say for sure how I would handle that. Tagging doesn't mean that person is participating, but still invades their privacy in some way. I assume nothing was addressed by your IRB regarding this matter? Do you have a faculty member you can ask who might have recruited in such a way? 

[Adelaide9216]

I am recruiting workers who work with this client population. Not victims themselves. I am still worried about confidentiality of participants though. 

Edited August 15, 2018 by Adelaide9216

[PokePsych]

Would it be possible to for example disable the comment function? Some social media allows you to do that.

[Elephas]

Before disabling the comments like psygeek suggested, maybe including a form link in the comments for them to submit an email like inquiry would help with the confidentiality.

[Adelaide9216]

On 8/15/2018 at 8:02 PM, Psygeek said:

Would it be possible to for example disable the comment function? Some social media allows you to do that.

I can't as I am not the admin of those FB groups  

[Adelaide9216]

On 8/20/2018 at 5:45 PM, Elephas said:

Before disabling the comments like psygeek suggested, maybe including a form link in the comments for them to submit an email like inquiry would help with the confidentiality.

That's a good option. I should have done that earlier though, because I think I need to submit that proposition to REB before I can do it. But I have already recruited 6 participants out of my 12 (which is my goal). So maybe it's too late for now, but I'll definetely keep that in mind for future research! Thanks!