Individual Abstract within a Delegate Designed Symposium Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting 2023

The strategies employed to recruit for MindOnLine - a 9 week online mindfulness program for people who have completed treatment for bowel, breast or prostate cancer (#135)

Natalie Winter 1 , Lahiru Russell 1 , Brindha Pillay 2 , Kirsten Pilatti 3 , Michael O'Callaghan 4 , Sally Sara 5 , Anna Ugalde 1 , Liliana Orellana 1 , Vicki White 1 , Patricia Livingston 1
  1. Deakin University, Geelong, VICTORIA, Australia
  2. Psychology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. Breast Cancer Networf of Australia, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  4. The South Australian Prostate Cancer Clinical Outcomes Collaborative, Adelaide, South Australia
  5. Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia, Sydney, New South Wales

Aim: To measure effectiveness of recruitment strategies when inviting people with breast, bowel or prostate cancer who have elevated levels of fear of cancer recurrence into MindOnLine: a 9-week online mindfulness program; and to inform strategies for implementing interventions in the community setting.

 

Methods: Recruitment strategies included i) paid services: cancer registries, hospital outpatient clinics, social media ads managed by the research team; ii) unpaid services: partner organisation cancer registries; ii) community promotion: cancer government services, social media posts, online and community cancer peer support groups, and general community groups. Invitations included a brief overview of the study. In outpatient clinics people were initially screened by a research assistant and if interested were sent an email with further details of the program. Potential participants were directed to the project manager or study website for screening and registration. This study is a cost-benefit calculation for paid recruitment services during a randomised controlled trial.

 

Results: Recruitment commenced in October 2020 and is ongoing. Over 900 people were invited via one paid registry ($12,000); social media ads were displayed on-screen 1.4 million times ($7,591); and over 500 people were approached via outpatient clinics (research assistant salary $21,112). Of those formally screened (n=1361), eligible participants from paid services were cancer registries (n=12, $1000/per participant); clinics (n=19, $1111/per participant) and social media ads (n=34, $199/per participant).

 

Conclusions: Recruitment costs and participant reach vary between paid cancer registries, recruitment via outpatient clinics, and self-managed social media ads. In this study social media ad reached over more than 1 million more people than registries or outpatient clinics, and were 75% cheaper than other paid recruitment sites. These findings highlight the potential role of social media ads when implementing technology-based resources into community cancer care.