How have contemporary research studies used social media to recruit to digital self-help intervention research for young people’s mental health? A mapping review

Introduction
Self-help, digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) are a scalable way to improve access to mental health support. Recruiting young people to research studies evaluating mental health interventions is vital for the development of effective interventions that can address the global needs-access gap. Given that many young people are digital natives, social media offers an opportunity for researchers to share study adverts. Yet, there is a lack of reporting on specifically how social media is being used for study recruitment into research studies, such as the content of posts and the frequency of posting. We aimed to map how studies evaluating self-help DMHIs for young people have used social media as a recruitment method.

Methods
We systematically searched the PubMed and APA PsycInfo (and supplementary searches on Google Scholar and Cochrane) databases from 2019 to 2024 to identify published studies reporting outcomes of self-help DMHIs for 10–24 year-olds. Data was extracted on what platforms researchers used to recruit, the frequency of posting, what kind of account (personal/institutional), and the narrative content posted in study advertisements. Findings were synthesised narratively, including descriptive counts and content analysis on text-based data.

Results
Of the 37 studies meeting inclusion criteria, 18 described using social media in recruitment. For five of these, social media was the exclusive recruitment strategy. Studies used a variety of social media platforms, most commonly Facebook and Instagram. Ten studies described when and/or how often they posted on social media, and six specified what type of social media account was used to post study adverts. Ten studies included the text narrative used on social media posts and these tended to include a catchy tagline, study information, and participant eligibility criteria.

Conclusions
Social media is a potential recruitment avenue. When it is used, detailing how it is used, including what platform, what content, how often, from what kind of account, and using what functionality is important for transparent reporting and reproducibility. Co-designing social media recruitment strategies with young people with living experience of using social media currently could help to align current usage patterns in the target demographic with recruitment activities.