Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Henderson Site, 60 (G) Wing, 2nd Floor, 711 Concession Street, Hamilton, ON L8V 1C3, Canada.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2010 May 13;10:123. doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-10-123.
Self-administered surveys are an essential methodological tool for health services and knowledge translation research, and engaging end-users of the research is critical. However, few documented accounts of the efforts invested in recruitment of multiple different stakeholders to one health services research study exist. Here, we highlight the challenges of recruiting key stakeholders (policy-makers, clinicians, guideline developers) to a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded health services research (HSR) study aimed to develop an updated and refined version of a guideline appraisal tool, the AGREE.
Using evidence-based methods of recruitment, our goal was to recruit 192 individuals: 80 international guideline developers, 80 Canadian clinicians and 32 Canadian policy/decision-makers. We calculated the participation rate and the recruitment efficiency.
We mailed 873 invitation letters. Of 838 approached, our participation rate was 29%(240) and recruitment efficiency, 19%(156). One policy-maker manager did not allow policy staff to participate in the study.
Based on the results from this study, we suggest that future studies aiming to engage similar stakeholders in HSR over sample by at least 5 times to achieve their target sample size and allow for participant withdrawals. We need continued efforts to communicate the value of research between researchers and end-users of research (policy-makers, clinicians, and other researchers), integration of participatory research strategies, and promotion of the value of end-user involvement in research. Future research to understand methods of improving recruitment efficiency and engaging key stakeholders in HSR is warranted.
自我管理的调查是卫生服务和知识转化研究的重要方法工具，让研究的最终用户参与研究至关重要。然而，很少有记录表明在招募多个不同利益相关者参与一项卫生服务研究方面投入了多少努力。在这里，我们强调了向加拿大卫生研究院（CIHR）资助的卫生服务研究（HSR）研究中招募关键利益相关者（政策制定者、临床医生、指南制定者）的挑战，该研究旨在开发指南评估工具的更新和精炼版本，即 AGREE。
我们使用基于证据的招募方法，目标是招募 192 名个体：80 名国际指南制定者、80 名加拿大临床医生和 32 名加拿大政策/决策者。我们计算了参与率和招募效率。
我们邮寄了 873 封邀请函。在联系的 838 人中，我们的参与率为 29%（240 人），招募效率为 19%（156 人）。一位政策制定者经理不允许政策工作人员参与研究。
根据这项研究的结果，我们建议未来的研究应将目标研究人群增加至少 5 倍，以达到其目标样本量，并允许参与者退出。我们需要继续努力在研究人员和研究的最终用户（政策制定者、临床医生和其他研究人员）之间传达研究的价值，整合参与式研究策略，并宣传最终用户参与研究的价值。有必要进行未来的研究，以了解提高招募效率和吸引 HSR 关键利益相关者的方法。
