Strategies for successful recruitment of young adults to healthy lifestyle programmes for the prevention of weight gain: a systematic review

Abstract

Recruiting healthy young adults, aged 18-35, to lifestyle programmes for prevention of weight gain is challenging but important given their increasing rates of obesity. This review aimed to examine the success of different recruitment strategies. A systematic literature search identified 26 separate studies using 10 electronic databases. Participant characteristics and efficacy of interventions were well reported in all studies, but reporting of recruitment procedures, costs, times and effectiveness was minimal. Of those reporting recruitment, both active (e.g. face-to-face) and passive (e.g. print-media and mass-mailings) approaches were identified with the latter most frequently employed. Novel strategies such as social media and marketing approaches were identified. Television and radio have potentially high reach but low efficiency with high cost compared with mass-mailings which yield high numbers of participants. Marketing campaigns appeared to be a promising approach. Incentives demonstrated enhanced recruitment. The use of formative research to guide recruitment strategies for interventions is recommended. Reporting of success, cost and timelines for recruitment should be included in reporting of future trials. This first synthesis of recruitment information can be used to inform recruitment frameworks for lifestyle programmes seeking to attract young adults.

A pragmatic examination of active and passive recruitment methods to improve the reach of community lifestyle programs: The Talking Health Trial

“…Our finding that participants recruited through active methods were more representative of the census data and screened and eligible groups is consistent with previous research that has tracked recruitment methods and compared characteristics to the population from which participants were recruited [9, 12, 17, 37–39]. While the active strategies yielded a lower income, education, and female sample, when comparing actively recruited individuals who were enrolled to actively recruited individuals that declined participation, those that enrolled were still more educated, less likely to be men, and more likely to have a higher average income (but not to the same level of those recruited through passive strategies).…”

“…Unfortunately, across SSB and other lifestyle intervention studies, few report on the methods used to recruit participants or on the representativeness of the sample when compared to a defined target population [12]. Lam and colleagues systematic review of recruitment strategies for young adult participation in lifestyle interventions for the prevention of weight gain is a good example.…”

“…Lam and colleagues systematic review of recruitment strategies for young adult participation in lifestyle interventions for the prevention of weight gain is a good example. When completing the data abstraction on recruitment strategies they found that 23 of the 25 articles had insufficient information to fully describe the recruitment processes used in the studies [12]. The recommendations derived from the systematic review were for researchers to provide detailed information on recruitment strategies and report on the representativeness of participants based on the target population characteristics [12].…”

“…Across behavioral intervention literature researchers have provided information distinguishing between passive and active recruitment strategies [12–19]. Passive recruitment strategies include those without direct interaction with potential participants (e.g., flyers, newspaper ads, targeted mailings).…”

Modern approaches to the problem of values’ formation of students’ healthy lifestyle in the course of physical training

“…In such researches scientists consider: − general-theoretical questions of a healthy lifestyle formation in different groups of the population [11,12]; − the social value of health culture education [13,14]; − the somatic health of youth [15]; − directions of increase in health's level by means of a recreation and rehabilitation [16]; It revealed the high interest of experts in questions of students' involvement in a healthy lifestyle [17]. Authors determine that the main formation criterions of healthy lifestyle values' in students are: − involving in regular training with physical culture [18,19]; − interesting in obesity prevention and keeping a healthy diet [20,21]; − health behavior and cardiometabolic risk factors [22]; − lifestyle factors connected with a depression [23]; − level of physical activity knowledge, students' knowledge about healthy and unhealthy nutrition habits and nutrition knowledge [24].…”