Recruitment
Increasing Level Participation Clinical Trials Delays completion a clinical trial typically caused lack patient availability. In fact, studies 10% eligible patients participate clinical trials.
Recruitment: Methods and challenges
One of the most common recruitment strategies when soliciting individuals to participate in experiments is offering financial compensation through general advertisements on the web, radio, or in other publications. Financial compensation encourages individuals to participate in clinical trials and other types of research studies because it compensates them for the loss of job income, as well as for any possible risks that might be posed by the experiment. For individuals who are between jobs, or for college students, money can be a significant motivator to encourage them to participate.
One experiment specifically comparing the response rates "emphasizing pecuniary and the other non-pecuniary benefits of participation" of a study found that "the former resulted in higher response rate and the strength of this treatment effect was comparable in different groups defined by gender and academic major" (Krawczyk 2011: 482). However, one potentially negative side effect of this technique is that once subjects...
"In a follow-up test conducted about a year later it was found that individuals recruited by invitations emphasizing monetary benefits were less willing to make an effort to participate in a non-paid survey" (Krawczyk 2011: 482).
General advertisements with offered financial compensation can be useful in recruiting test subjects for initial phases of clinical trials, when healthy patients are needed, or when the subject of the research study is fairly general in nature (such as testing a drug that will be used by a large segment of the population). Other forms of recruitment include advertising for subject participants on websites or other content areas that specifically serve the needs of individuals with different diseases or conditions. This form of recruitment is most advantageous when the drug or treatment is designed to be used by a fairly narrow segment of the population. "Study-specific subject recruitment sites are growing in popularity, with 68,458 clinical trials listed with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2009. The PEW Internet Health Study reports the following: eight in ten Internet users…
