Trial reportTrials2018
Successful recruitment to trials: findings from the SCIMITAR+ Trial.
Trial report in Trials, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of a one-year smoking cessation intervention for people with severe mental illness: results of the KISMET cluster-randomized controlled trial.Psychological medicine · 2026Trial
- Stepping into day treatment approach versus inpatient treatment for adults with anorexia nervosa: the DAISIES RCT.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2025Trial
- Factors That Impact Hospital-Specific Enrollment Rates for a Neonatal Clinical Trial: An Analysis of the HEAL Study.Ethics & human research · 2023Trial
- Barriers and Facilitators to Intracerebral Haemorrhage Platform Trial Recruitment: A Survey of Stroke Clinicians.Cerebrovascular diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Research assistants' experiences recruiting patients with psychosis into clinical trials: a qualitative study.Trials · 2025Article
- Article
- Autopsy of a failed trial part 1: A qualitative investigation of clinician's views on and experiences of the implementation of the DAISIES trial in UK-based intensive eating disorder services.European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association · 2023Article
- Barriers and facilitators to the recruitment of disabled people to clinical trials: a scoping review.Trials · 2023Article
- A smoking cessation intervention for people with severe mental illness treated in ambulatory mental health care (KISMET): study protocol of a randomised controlled trial.BMC psychiatry · 2023Article
- Recruiting and retaining participants in three randomised controlled trials of psychological interventions conducted on acute psychiatric wards: top ten tips for success.BJPsych open · 2022Article
- A dynamic and collaborative approach to trial recruitment in safetxt, a UK sexual health randomised controlled trial.Clinical trials (London, England) · 2022Article
- ELaPro, a LOINC-mapped core dataset for top laboratory procedures of eligibility screening for clinical trials.BMC medical research methodology · 2022Article
- Adapting Peer Researcher Facilitated Strategies to Recruit People Receiving Mental Health Services to a Tobacco Treatment Trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Article
- Recruitment strategies for a pragmatic cluster randomized oral health trial in pediatric primary care settings.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2021Article
- "Include me if you can"-reasons for low enrollment of pediatric patients in a psychopharmacological trial.Trials · 2021Article
- Article
- Barriers and facilitators of clinician and researcher collaborations: a qualitative study.BMC health services research · 2020Article
- Exploring Suicidal Ideation Using an Innovative Mobile App-Strength Within Me: The Usability and Acceptability of Setting up a Trial Involving Mobile Technology and Mental Health Service Users.JMIR mental health · 2020Article
- [Work sampling in ophthalmological clinical studies. A multicenter field study].Der Ophthalmologe : Zeitschrift der Deutschen Ophthalmologischen Gesellschaft · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors at 10 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRandomised controlled trials (RCT) can struggle to recruit to target on time. This is especially the case with hard to reach populations such as those with severe mental ill health. The SCIMITAR+ trial, a trial of a bespoke smoking cessation intervention for people with severe mental ill health achieved their recruitment ahead of time and target. This article reports strategies that helped us to achieve this with the aim of aiding others recruiting from similar populations.
methodsSCIMITAR+ is a multi-centre pragmatic two-arm parallel-group RCT, which aimed to recruit 400 participants with severe mental ill health who smoke and would like to cut down or quit. The study recruited primarily in secondary care through community mental health teams and psychiatrists with a smaller number of participants recruited through primary care. Recruitment opened in October 2015 and closed in December 2016, by which point 526 participants had been recruited. We gathered information from recruiting sites on strategies which led to the successful recruitment in SCIMITAR+ and in this article present our approach to trial management along with the strategies employed by the recruiting sites.
resultsAlongside having a dedicated trial manager and trial management team, we identified three main themes that led to successful recruitment. These were: clinicians with a positive attitude to research; researchers and clinicians working together; and the use of NHS targets. The overriding theme was the importance of relationships between both the researchers and the recruiting clinicians and the recruiting clinicians and the participants.
conclusionsThis study makes a significant contribution to the limited evidence base of real-world cases of successful recruitment to RCTs and offers practical guidance to those planning and conducting trials. Building positive relationships between clinicians, researchers and participants is crucial to successful recruitment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.