ArticleTrials2025
Finding trials for participants: an ethnographic study of successful recruitment strategies for clinical trials.
Article in Trials, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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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.
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Who cites it
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundFinding participants is one of the main barriers to the timely and successful running of clinical trials. Poor recruitment can lead to many issues, such as delays, which often leads to greater financial resources being put into the trials. We explore how a clinical trial centre with a good recruitment record is able to find participants for trials through successful innovative strategies.
methodsEthnographic observations were conducted over a 17-month period at a clinical trial unit in London, UK, supplemented with semi-structured and ethnographic interviews with staff and participants. Observations focused on three hypertension clinical trials, including screening and pre-screening visits for them. Overall, the dataset included 353.5 h of observations, 322 min of semi-structures interviews, and ethnographic interviews not recorded.
resultsIt was found that The Centre engaged in innovative strategies by reversing the traditional logic of recruitment. As well as engaging in the traditional model of trial recruitment (1-4), where participants were found for specific trials (such as radio, newspaper, and social media adverts, and recruiting from other healthcare settings), The Centre reversed the logic and found trials for participants, a similar logic to how trial-matching platforms work. This was done by offering participants a range of trials when they first came to The Centre and offering other appropriate trials when they had finished the ones they were on. This reversed logic changed the nature of suitability of a participant to not only be someone eligible, but someone who staff would want and appreciate.
conclusionTrouble recruiting for clinical trials is a perennial problem. Understanding how a successful centre recruits by reversing the logic of recruitment may allow other settings to attempt this to boost numbers and representativeness on trials. This opens up areas of future research to systematically test these methods.
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