Daly Jeanette M, Levy Barcey T, Xu Yinghui, Levy Steven M, Fontana Margherita
Department of Family Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Department of Family Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA Department of Epidemiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
Clin Trials. 2016 Jun;13(3):311-8. doi: 10.1177/1740774516630550. Epub 2016 Feb 9.
BACKGROUND/AIMS: Recruitment of parent/infant pairs can be more difficult and challenging than recruitment of adult subjects alone as the parent has to consider themselves along with the infant to be study participants. In order to determine which recruitment methods most effectively resulted in accrual of subjects, recruitment efforts at the University of Iowa were evaluated, one of three clinical sites involved in a longitudinal prospective study of dental caries.
Enrollment goals were 300 parent/infant pairs within a year. Recruitment strategies included (1) a direct mailing to potential subjects who were University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics patients and potentially met inclusion criteria; (2) face-to-face recruitment visits at medical offices; (3) provision of recruitment materials to staff at off-campus agencies and medical offices serving low-income individuals; (4) a campus-wide mass e-mail; (5) recruitment materials to daycare centers and neighborhood centers; and (6) recruitment at a children's museum.
From these recruitment efforts, 515 potential participants expressed interest and were screened for this study and 348 (68%) were enrolled during an 11-month time period. The face-to-face strategy had the highest recruitment rate of 25%, followed by direct individual mailings at 9% and follow-up telephone calls at 7%. For the face-to-face strategy, the contact at the children's museum was most successful compared to the other office settings. The lowest rate of recruitment of 0.09% was attained with the mass e-mail. However, in terms of actual numbers recruited, the mass e-mail remained an important modality since it yielded 21 recruits and was much less time-intensive.
An intensive, multi-pronged recruitment strategy proved successful in meeting enrollment goals and resulted in finishing the enrollment prior to the projected study deadline. Effective recruitment approaches are imperative for a study's success and each recruitment strategy needs to be budgeted and planned for in a study. Investigators may need to adapt their approach to attain the needed number of subjects. Planning needs to include the numbers needed to be approached to attain your recruitment goal, how you will recruit, who will be responsible, and the costs and time commitment for various strategies.
背景/目的：招募父母/婴儿对可能比单独招募成年受试者更困难且更具挑战性，因为父母必须将自己和婴儿都视为研究参与者。为了确定哪种招募方法能最有效地实现受试者招募，对爱荷华大学的招募工作进行了评估，该校是一项龋齿纵向前瞻性研究的三个临床站点之一。
招募目标是在一年内招募300对父母/婴儿对。招募策略包括：（1）直接邮寄给爱荷华大学医院和诊所的患者且可能符合纳入标准的潜在受试者；（2）在医疗办公室进行面对面招募访问；（3）向校外机构和为低收入人群服务的医疗办公室的工作人员提供招募材料；（4）全校范围内群发电子邮件；（5）向日托中心和社区中心提供招募材料；（6）在儿童博物馆进行招募。
通过这些招募工作，515名潜在参与者表达了兴趣并接受了本研究的筛查，在11个月的时间里有348名（68%）被招募。面对面策略的招募率最高，为25%，其次是直接个人邮寄，为9%，后续电话招募为7%。对于面对面策略，与其他办公场所相比，在儿童博物馆的接触最为成功。群发电子邮件的招募率最低，为0.09%。然而，就实际招募人数而言，群发电子邮件仍然是一种重要方式，因为它招募了21人，且耗时少得多。
密集的、多管齐下的招募策略在实现招募目标方面被证明是成功的，并在预计的研究截止日期之前完成了招募。有效的招募方法对研究的成功至关重要，每项招募策略都需要在研究中进行预算和规划。研究人员可能需要调整他们的方法以获得所需数量的受试者。规划需要包括为实现招募目标需要接触的人数、招募方式、负责人以及各种策略的成本和时间投入。
