Marketing Effectiveness in Reaching the Nontreatment-Seeking Marijuana Smoker

ABSTRACT

Successfully meeting recruitment goals is critical in completing clinical research, but it is often one of the most difficult challenges in conducting a study. This paper describes the recruitment effort for a randomized controlled trial of a brief intervention targeting ambivalent marijuana smokers. The project successfully recruited 188 heavy marijuana smokers, the majority of whom were precontemplators or contemplators in respect to their motivation to make changes. A theoretical model of social marketing is utilized in discussing the development and evaluation of this study's recruitment efforts. The model is potentially useful in the planning and initial implementation phases of recruitment strategies, both in efficacy studies and in community treatment settings.

KEYWORDS:

• Social marketing
• recruitment
• marijuana
• check-up
• brief intervention