Using Social Media as a Survey Recruitment Strategy for Post-Secondary Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly forced Canadian post-secondary students into remote learning methods, with potential implications on their academic success and health. In recent years, the use of social media to promote research participation and as a strategy for communicating health messages has become increasingly popular. To better understand how the pandemic has impacted this population, we used social media platforms to recruit students to participate in a national bilingual COVID-19 Health Literacy Survey. The purpose of the survey was to assess the health literacy levels and online information-seeking behaviors of post-secondary students in relation to the coronavirus. This paper outlines the social media recruitment strategies used for promoting participation in the survey among Canadian post-secondary students during the pandemic. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts were created to promote the online survey. The objective of this paper is to examine the use of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as survey recruitment strategies tailored to students. Data analytics from these platforms were analyzed using descriptive statistics. We found that the most commonly used platform for survey dissemination was Twitter, with 64800 total impressions recorded over 3 months. The use of social media as a survey recruitment strategy showed promise in the current context of COVID-19 where many students are participating in online learning and for a study population that actively uses these platforms to seek out information

An intersectional analysis of moral distress and intention to leave employment among long-term care providers in British Columbia during the COVID-19 pandemic

Long-Term Care (LTC) workers have reported declining emotional well-being over the past few years. In this study, we aimed to explore the relationship between intersectional inequities and moral distress among those working in LTC in British Columbia, Canada. This was an observational, cross-sectional, and retrospective study administered through a survey. Data collection occurred between October and December 2022. We estimated mean levels of moral distress through an adapted version of the Moral Distress Scale (MDS) at the two-way intersections of gender and racial/ethnic identity among LTC providers. We also estimated an equivalent distress mitigation score. Then, we explored which worker attributes (i.e., gender, racialized experiences, profession, work arrangement, migratory information, and professional distress levels) were more predictive of intention to leave work using a Random Forest model. We found notable difference in experiences of moral distress across intersecting identities, including high moral distress scores among Indigenous men (77.0, 95% CI: 65.7 to 88.4) and women (72.43, 95%CI: 65.44 to 79.43) and white women (68.17, 95% CI: 65.67 to 70.67). Significant differences in mitigation scores were also found by intersectional identities. The most distressing experiences of white women and women of colour (~80% of our sample) were those related to workload, lack of time with residents, and lack of time for self. 73.5% of Indigenous women were considering leaving their position. Moral distress was the most important predictor of intention to leave work. The differences across racial and gender identity groups, in both sources of distress and preferred mitigation strategies, suggest the need for tailored interventions to address moral distress among LTC providers. Further research and collaboration with stakeholders are warranted to develop comprehensive strategies

Informal health caregivers’ experiences of virtual care: a scoping review protocol

A scoping review protocol to identify and describe peer-reviewed and grey literature on unpaid, informal caregivers' experiences using virtual care