Table 3.

Study characteristics for qualitative studies of social media users.

References	Location	Study design	Number of participants	Demographics of participants	Research objective	Findings
Bond et al. (33)	UK	Qualitative online semi-structured asynchronous interviews	26	46% male 35% female 19% unidentified	To assess the opinions of diabetes discussion board users concerning their views about health researchers using their posts	Aggregated data can be used by researchers, but no consensus on the views of using individual information
Mikal et al. (34)	USA	Semi-structured focus group interviews	26	65% male 31% female 4% unidentified Average age, 26.9 years	To assess public views toward using Twitter data for population mental health monitoring	Relatively positive view to using Twitter data provided data are aggregated
Monks et al. (35)	Australia	Focus group interviews	48	Aged 13–14	To assess how young people perceive the use of social media for health and well-being research	Concerns regarding privacy, consent, and practicality but also recognize the benefits, and are open to social media research if appropriate consent and confidentiality were ensured
Moreno et al. (36)	USA	Interviews following public Facebook profiles being identified	132	48.8% male 51.2% female Average age, 18.4 years	To assess how older adolescents feel regarding being identified for a study via there Facebook profiles	Most adolescents had a positive view toward the use of Facebook for research, but those who were uneasy or concerned showed confusion toward profile security settings