The Use of Social and Digital Media to Recruit Patients with Early and Intermediate Age-related Macular Degeneration

Abstract

Purpose : Social media has many uses in ophthalmology including communication, outreach, patient engagement and education. The use of social media to recruit patients with select phenotypes of ocular diseases is understudied. Our group is currently building a longitudinal cohort of patients with early AMD (eAMD) and intermediate AMD (iAMD) to address the role of epidemiological, systemic, genetic, and imaging biomarkers in AMD progression. We were interested in expanding of our enrollment into the community using a demographically targeted social and digital media-based recruitment strategy. Thus, the goal of this pilot study was to 1) develop a methodological framework of recruiting patients using social/digital media, and 2) compare clinical characteristics of the social/digital media and traditionally recruited groups.

Methods : Ads linked with the social media platform, Facebook and a digital source, the University of Colorado (CU) research studies recruitment newsletter web page, ran between 11/7/21 and 4/30/22. The Facebook ads were age-targeted to individuals over 55 years of age living within 12 miles of the CU Sue Anschutz-Rodgers Eye Center who had eAMD or iAMD. Interested individuals clicked through to a survey. A study coordinator called the patient to review their answers, and the study eligibility criteria. Patients estimated as having a high likelihood of eAMD or iAMD, were scheduled for a research visit. Multimodal imaging was performed to determine the AMD phenotype.

Results : The Facebook ads collectively reached 69,475 individuals. Screening statistics are shown in Figure 1. There were 1,850 clicks and 74 survey submissions. 30 patients were eligible for the research visit. 10 (33%) of these patients did not have eAMD or iAMD. Thus, 20 of 30 (67%) patients had eAMD or iAMD. Patients recruited through social media/digital platforms were significantly younger and had fewer medical co-morbidities compared with patients recruited using traditional methods (Table 1).

Conclusions : We developed a methodology for the use of social/digital media to recruit individuals with eAMD or iAMD into a longitudinal AMD cohort with most of our enrollees recruited from Facebook ads. The study’s findings suggest that social/digital media is an effective tool to recruit patients with eAMD or iAMD.

This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.