Recruitment

Recruitment is the process we use to get people from a previously identified sample to participate in our studies (see sampling pages on toolkit). Recruitment of research participants involves giving potential participants information about the study, its methods and what is involved in participation. Thereby, we can generate interest in the study and allow the potential participants to make an informed decision on whether to participate.

Common strategies through which such study information is shared include making phone calls, sending information sheets (leaflets) to potential participants, posting information on social media or displaying flyers in areas potential participants may frequent. Below is an example of a flyer used to recruit for a study exploring views of role models for lesbian, bisexual and queer women (Mann, n.d.)

Next, we must enrol the people who have shown interest in our studies. The enrolment process usually includes a ‘screening’ step in which potential participants are evaluated to make sure they are ‘a good fit’ for the study. For example, if we wanted to study how people with anxiety respond to different working environments, we would need to ‘screen for’ participants with anxiety. Also, during the enrolment process participants will need to confirm that they understand what the research is for and that they are willing to participate by signing an informed consent form.

In addition to recruiting participants to our studies, we must make efforts to ‘retain’ study participants. Retention is the process by which researchers keep participants interested and participating in their study over time. Important questions to consider when undergoing the recruitment process include:

• What will motivate a member of my sample to participate in my study?
• How can a representative sample be obtained?
• Once recruited, what can I do to ensure my participants want to continue in the study? (Wheeler, 2015)

We must also make sure our recruitment, enrolment and retention practices meet ethical requirements for research studies. Generally, this means that people must have a clear understanding of what they are signing up to if they choose to participate in our studies. Additionally, people must be able to freely choose whether they would like to participate or not. Furthermore, participants are allowed to withdraw their participation at any time.

(Author: Madison Wempe)

Videos:

Books:

Randomized controlled trials by Sube Banerjee et al. (2020)

This resource is the twelfth chapter of an epidemiology methods book for psychiatric epidemiology. Although the chapter is about randomised controlled trials, participant recruitment and informed consent are discussed on pages 193 – 194.

(Academic reference: Banerjee, S., Taylor, R., & Hellier, J. (2020). Randomised controlled trials. In Das-Munshi, J., Ford, T., Hotopf, M., Prince, M., & Stewart, R.  (Eds.), Practical psychiatric epidemiology (2nd ed., pp. 188 – 217). Oxford University Press)

Recruitment of research participants by Narendar Manohar, Freya MacMillan, Genevieve Steiner, and Amit Arora (2019)

This is a chapter of the Handbook of Research Methods in Health and Social Sciences which specifically addresses recruitment. The handbook, or this specific chapter, are available to buy.

(Academic reference: Manohar, N., MacMillan, F., Steiner, G. Z., & Arora, A. (2019). Recruitment of research participants. In Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences (pp. 71-98). Springer Reference. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-10-5251-4_75)

Presentation:

Sampling, recruiting, and retaining diverse samples by Lorey Wheeler (2015)

This PowerPoint presentation provides an in-depth look at sampling, recruitment and retention methods. It highlights the importance of recruiting a diverse sample. It notes that methods which have been successful with middle-class European American groups might not work well with ethnic minority or economically disadvantaged populations.

(Academic reference: Wheeler, L. (2015, November 20). Sampling, recruiting, and retaining diverse samples. [PowerPoint presentation]. MAP Academy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. https://cyfs.unl.edu/cyfsprojects/videoPPT/f37671cb8959f017530b26f07c384799/151120-Wheeler.pdf)

Videos:

Planning for a participant recruitment phase by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2015)

This short video highlights the importance of thinking through the recruitment phase of your study. Particularly, it stresses that the time and effort it will take to recruit participants must be considered when designing your study.

(Academic reference: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2015, April 29). Research participant recruitment: planning for a recruitment phase [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiU5DawChTE&t=1s)

Manuals and Guides:

Finding participants for user research by the UK Government User Research Community (2020)

This chapter of the UK Government’s Service Manual introduces participant recruitment and highlights key steps such as: identifying your target groups, choosing the best approaches to find participants, providing an information sheet and recruiting disabled participants.

(Academic reference: UK Government User Research Community. (2020, April 28). Finding participants for user research. Service manual. UK Government. https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/user-research/find-user-research-participants)

Recruitment settings and procedures by University of Nevada, Reno (2020)

This chapter of the University of Nevada, Reno’s Human Research Protection Policy Manual connects the recruitment process to ethical procedures. It is intended for employees of the University but will be useful to most people.

(Academic reference: University of Nevada, Reno. (2020, September 23). 300. Recruitment Settings and Procedures. Human Research Protection Policy Manual. University of Nevada, Reno. https://www.unr.edu/research-integrity/human-research/human-research-protection-policy-manual/300-recruitment-settings-and-procedures#:~:text=Recruitment%20is%20generally%20the%20first,to%20the%20informed%20consent%20process)

Guidance on completing a participant information sheet by UCL Research Ethics Service (n.d.)

This seven-page guide provides in depth detail on how best to structure a participant information sheet.

(Academic reference: UCL Research Ethics Service. (n.d.). Guidance on completing a participant information sheet. https://ethics.grad.ucl.ac.uk/forms/model-participant-information-sheet-and-guidance.pdf)

Impact of patient and public involvement on enrolment and retention in clinical trials:  systematic review and meta-analysis by Crocker et al. (2018)

This article concludes that patient and public involvement (PPI) in clinical trials may improve enrolment and retention in studies. The discussion section of the paper is particularly relevant.

(Academic reference: Crocker, J. C., Ricci-Cabello, I., Servet, M., Parker, A., Hirst, J. A., Chant, A., Petit-Zeman, S., Evans, D., & Rees, S. (2018). Impact of patient and public involvement on enrolment and retention in clinical trials: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4738)

Manuals and Guidelines:

Blogs: