The use of social media for recruitment and communication in multicentre collaborative studies

Abstract

s / International Journal of Surgery 12 (2014) S13eS117 S51 suffered significant delays accessing ultrasound (USS) if they attended in the latter half of the week. Methods: Patients admitted to the general surgical department at Blackpool Victoria Hospital during a 3-month period were identified; those investigated by USS were included. Data onwhen the USS was ordered and reported was collected. The week was split Monday-Wednesday, Thursday-Sunday and analysed using an unpaired t-test. Results: 107 patients underwent USS Monday-Wednesday, 88 patients Thursday-Sunday. The mean time taken to report the USS Mon-wed was 20.70hours (SD15.56); Thurs-sun 39.52hours (SD 37.04); A significantly longer time in the Thursday-Sunday group, +18.82hours (95% CI +11.04 +26.60)(p<0.0001). Conclusions: These results highlight the need for a greater provision of USS in the latter half of the week to enable equal access. As a result of delays to USS it is likely patients admitted Thursday-Sunday have prolonged admissions increasing costs to the NHS. 0854: THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA FOR RECRUITMENT AND COMMUNICATION IN MULTICENTRE COLLABORATIVE STUDIES Charlotte Carpenter, Helen Stark , Natalie Blencowe , Sean Strong 2 SPARCS Severn and Peninsula Audit and Research Collaborative1Bristol Royal Infirmary, Bristol, UK; University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. Introduction: Surgical studies can be difficult to design and conduct and often face problems with recruiting adequate numbers of participants. We describe and evaluate the use of social media to facilitate the recruitment of geographically diverse centres to a trainee collaborative-delivered study involving general surgical patients. Methods: A communications team co-ordinated the dissemination of information and answering queries to facilitate targeted recruitment. ‘Interventions’ were delivered throughout recruitment, including email newsletters, targeted emails and tweets. Twitter support sessionswere held to share and address concerns. Interventions were correlated with email enquiries, website hits and registration of centres participating in the study. Results: Following an email bulletin to ASiT (Association of Surgeons in Training) members and Twitter publicity linked toWorld Sepsis Day, email enquiries that week increased to 47 (weekly mean 1⁄49) and 47 more centres confirmed participation. The website attracted 358 additional hits following the first twitter support session and registered centres increased from 108 to 120 during this period. Conclusions: Social media should be considered in future studies to maximise recruitment in a cost effective manner. Social media enables discussion amongst all collaborators and helps to maintain interest and motivation of participating clinicians. 0863: ADHERENCE TO ANTIBIOTIC PROPHYLAXIS TRUST GUIDELINES FOR ELECTIVE INGUINAL HERNIA REPAIR AND LAPAROSCOPIC CHOLECYSTECTOMY: A RE-AUDIT. Kathryn O'Shea, Caroline Cozon, Magdi Hanafy. Leighton Hospital, Crewe,