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Category: Project

Description: Clinical trials are important, but recruiting and retaining participants is challenging. Fewer than half of all trials meet recruitment goals, wasting time, money, and effort for both researchers and participants. Poor retention, when participants drop out prematurely, weakens trial results. Recruitment and retention problems delay the timely development of effective treatments. We have undertaken systematic reviews, which found a lack of high-quality evidence for guiding recruitment and retention decisions. To address this, we propose using Study Within A Trial (SWAT) methods. A SWAT is an evaluation done in another trial and can test how effective strategies for recruiting and retaining participants are. We have identified priority recruitment and retention SWATs, based on frequency of strategy use, existing evidence, and research priorities. Two of the priority questions focus on testing patient and public involvement (PPI) strategies for participant recruitment and retention. Our previous research highlights PPI’s importance, yet more high-quality research is needed to understand its impact on recruitment and retention. Our aim is to create clear plans, called protocols, for these PPI-focused questions. We will also develop resources to support researchers doing these and the other prioritised SWATs. These protocols and resources will be made available to other researchers. Each protocol will give clear guidance on the strategy being tested, outcome measures, and will be supported by resource packs to facilitate SWAT conduct. Our work will speed up the evidence about what works and doesn’t work for recruiting and retaining participants, leading to faster discoveries of better treatments.