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Recruitment Strategies for Clinical Trials in Radiology: Active vs. Passive Patient Recruitment. J Hollada S G Ruehm A Tognolini W Speier L Ristow W Marfori. Rationale. Patient recruitment for research studies is challenging
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Recruitment Strategies for Clinical Trials in Radiology: Active vs. Passive Patient Recruitment J Hollada S G Ruehm A Tognolini W Speier L Ristow W Marfori
Rationale • Patient recruitment for research studies is challenging • Radiological studies involving potentially harmful ionizing radiation, such as computed tomography (CT), often defer patients from voluntary study enrollment • The analysis of effective recruitment strategies is therefore of high interest
Radiological Clinical Trials: Challenges • Radiologists often have limited direct patient interaction • Radiologists typically do not control patient referrals for imaging tests • Radiological clinical trials are often highly dependent on other specialists to refer patients for enrollment
Importance of Effective and Efficient Patient Recruitment • Compliance with grant proposals and regulatory requirements is essential • Exceeding proposed time frames increases costs of trial execution • Inadequate approaches to patient recruitment may lead to a poor representation of the population under investigation introducing bias • General: Important for advancement of knowledge, technology and overall public health
Objective To compare the impact of active and passive recruitment strategies on cardiac CT based research studies
Study Population • Analysis of patient recruitment data over a 12-month period • Total of 641 subjects: • 279 females and 362 males (mean age: 66 +/- 10) were invited to participate in one of three IRB and HIPPA compliant cardiac CT research trials • Recruitment strategies included both passive and active measures
ActiveRecruitmentMethods • Research Staff • Research staff: Strategic review of medical records • Eligible subjects: a) contact via letters/flyers by mail b) follow-up telephone calls to confirm receipt of letter/flyer • Research staff explaining study to interested subjects who responded to the letters/flyers, or who expressed interest during the follow-up phone call • Physician referrals of pre-qualified patients
Passive Recruitment Methods • Flyer Pick Up • Posters • Brochures • Internet Postings/Ads • All 3 studies were posted on the UCLA radiology research page • Word of Mouth • Patients referred family members, friends and colleagues Placed in 5 different patient waiting areas and replenished monthly
Results • Of 767 potential study participants contacted, 108 (14.08%) were successfully enrolled in one of three imaging research studies (cardiac CT) • Active Recruitment: Of 738 potential study participants, 92 (12.47%) patients were successfully enrolled • Passive Recruitment: Of 26 potential study participants, 16 (61.54%) patients were successfully enrolled - Please note: Percentages represent the known amount of patients who were passively recruited and qualified to participate. Number of patients who saw flyers/brochures/posters/internet ads and chose not to participate remains unknown
Active Recruitment Results • 85% of patients were actively recruited (92/108 subjects) • Active Recruitment Strategies: - Research Staff: 73% (79/108 subjects) successfully recruited - Physician Referrals: 12% (13/108 subjects) successfully recruited
Passive Recruitment Results • 15% of subjects were passively recruited (16/108 subjects) • Passive Recruitment Strategies: • Word of Mouth: 56% (9/16 patients) • Flyer Distribution: 44% (7/16 patients) • Brochure Pick Up: 0% (0/16 patients) • Internet Postings/Ads: 0% (0/16 patients) • Posters: 0% (0/16 patients)
Recruitment Strategies • Active recruitment > Passive recruitment • Active recruitment strategies: enrollment of significantly more patients per month than passive recruitment strategies (p<0.00001) • Direct Recruitment via Research Staff > Passive Recruitment • The most effective method of direct recruitment via research staff enrolled significantly more patients per month than all passive recruitment strategies together (p<0.00001)
Conclusions • Active recruitment via dedicated research staff is a more effective method for recruiting patients to cardiovascular imaging CT research studies • Active patient recruitment allowed the questions and concerns of potential subjects to be addressed whether via research staff or referring physicians • Direct patient recruitment via research stasshas the added bonus of providing a greater pool of potential patients that qualified for various radiological clinical trials
Clinical Relevance • Successful strategies for patient recruitment require research staff dedicated to active patient recruitment • Continuous training of research staff involved in patient recruitment is expected to improve the efficiency of radiological trials • Further analysis of patient recruitment data derived from large scale clinical radiological trials are warranted to further improve recruitment strategies
Future Directions • Cost Analysis of Recruitment Methods • Compare the cost effectiveness of each recruitment method to further analyze what methods of recruitment work best for research studies involving cardiac CT