Sadler Georgia Robins, Ko Celine M, Malcarne Vanessa L, Banthia Rajni, Gutierrez Ivan, Varni James W
UCSD School of Medicine, La Jolla, CA 92093-0658, USA.
Contemp Clin Trials. 2007 Jul;28(4):423-32. doi: 10.1016/j.cct.2006.11.006. Epub 2006 Nov 21.
Multiple barriers contribute to the slow recruitment of participants to research studies, which in turn extends the time required to translate promising scientific discoveries into proven therapeutic interventions. A small but growing literature is developing on the extraordinary costs of recruiting participants to studies, and thereby demonstrating that underestimating the cost of participant recruitment can contribute to these recruitment problems. These recruitment challenges and costs are exacerbated when the participants' study eligibility is determined by relatively narrowly defined illness parameters. Recruitment challenges are further compounded when dyads (two individuals engaged in a sociologically significant relationship, such as husbands and wives, siblings or extended families) must be recruited to an illness-focused study. For these latter groups, there are no data to guide researchers in how to anticipate those participant recruitment costs. This paper describes the staff costs for a variety of strategies used to recruit participants to a randomized supportive care study for couples who were within 18 months of a prostate cancer diagnosis. Pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar for the period, the average cost of staff time was $288 per recruited and enrolled dyad, plus a promised additional $100 incentive for study retention. Within the strategies used, the staff costs per recruited dyad ranged from $152 to $1688. Accrual per strategy ranged from 0 to 107 enrolled couples. When asked for secondary sources of information about the study, many participants reported more than one source of study referral, reflective of the multifaceted recruitment strategies deployed. In spite of innovative, culturally competent, and broad based recruitment methods, attainment of a diverse sample was difficult to accomplish in this study. Having estimates of the actual cost of recruiting dyads to research studies can help investigators prepare realistic study budgets.
多种障碍导致研究招募参与者的速度缓慢，这反过来又延长了将有前景的科学发现转化为经证实的治疗干预措施所需的时间。关于招募参与者进行研究的高昂成本，虽相关文献数量不多但在不断增加，这表明低估参与者招募成本会导致这些招募问题。当参与者的研究资格由相对狭义定义的疾病参数决定时，这些招募挑战和成本会加剧。当必须招募二元组（如夫妻、兄弟姐妹或大家庭等具有社会学重要关系的两人）参与以疾病为重点的研究时，招募挑战会进一步复杂化。对于后一类群体，没有数据指导研究人员如何预估这些参与者招募成本。本文描述了为一项针对前列腺癌诊断后18个月内的夫妻的随机支持性护理研究招募参与者所采用的各种策略的人员成本。根据该时期美元的价值，每招募并登记一对参与者的人员时间平均成本为288美元，另外还有承诺的100美元用于鼓励参与者继续参与研究的奖励。在所采用的策略中，每招募一对参与者的人员成本从152美元到1688美元不等。每种策略招募的人数从0对到107对登记夫妻不等。当被问及关于该研究的二级信息来源时，许多参与者报告了不止一个研究推荐来源，这反映了所采用的多方面招募策略。尽管采用了创新、具有文化胜任力且基础广泛的招募方法，但在本研究中仍难以获得多样化的样本。预估招募二元组参与研究的实际成本有助于研究人员制定现实的研究预算。
