Recruitment Challenges Using Online Methods: A Qualitative Study of Young Adult Care Partners of Young Adults with Advanced Cancer

This case study examines the online recruitment strategies employed for a qualitative research study focused on advanced cancer within the young adult population. Young adults with advanced cancer often experience significant mental, emotional, and physical challenges, leading to increased reliance on untrained family members for caregiving. These caregivers, typically significant others, face unique difficulties that are underexplored in existing research. To address this gap, an interview guide was created to explore the experiences of young adults caregiving for their partners with advanced cancer. Online recruitment for the study presented significant challenges, such as securing participants who met the criteria, despite a year of varied recruitment strategies and adjustments in terminology. Ultimately, only two participants were successfully recruited for the pilot study. The recruitment process was more complex than anticipated, yielding valuable insights into the difficulties of online recruitment, engaging this unique population, and providing lessons for future research endeavors.