Systematic techniques for assisting recruitment to trials (START): study protocol for embedded, randomized controlled trials

Systematic techniques for assisting recruitment to trials (START): study protocol for embedded, randomized controlled trials

Trials, October 2014

25344684

Jo Rick, Jonathan Graffy, Peter Knapp, Nicola Small, David J. Collier, Sandra Eldridge, Anne Kennedy, Chris Salisbury, Shaun Treweek, David Torgerson, Paul Wallace, Vichithranie Madurasinghe, Adwoa Hughes-Morley, Peter Bower

Randomized controlled trials play a central role in evidence-based practice, but recruitment of participants, and retention of them once in the trial, is challenging. Moreover, there is a dearth of evidence that research teams can use to inform the development of their recruitment and retention strategies. As with other healthcare initiatives, the fairest test of the effectiveness of a recruitment strategy is a trial comparing alternatives, which for recruitment would mean embedding a recruitment trial within an ongoing host trial. Systematic reviews indicate that such studies are rare. Embedded trials are largely delivered in an ad hoc way, with interventions almost always developed in isolation and tested in the context of a single host trial, limiting their ability to contribute to a body of evidence with regard to a single recruitment intervention and to researchers working in different contexts.