Table 2 Barriers and challenges to recruitment
Barriers and challenges to recruitment and participation [1, 6, 10, 29–33] | Examples from the literature |
|---|---|
Geographical factors | Relocation of participants, transportation difficulties |
Illness-related barriers | Fear of relapse as a result of participation, hospitalisation, being medicated, medication change or other treatment issues, severity of illness, early phase of illness, unstable mental state, symptoms of mental illness, acceptance of illness |
Level of support | Lack of support to take part in research, ’no one to go with’ |
Belief in one’s capabilities | Low self-efficacy, self-esteem or confidence, lack of motivation, goals and aspirations |
Fear, suspicion and/or distrust of researchers and/or general distrust of research | Fear that research could be harmful or cause excessive worry for the person, concerns about confidentiality |
General inconvenience of participating in research | Takes too much time, lengthy process involving transportation and attendance |
Stigma of mental illness | Fear of being asked about sensitive subjects, invitation to take part in research exacerbates feelings of being labelled by mental illness |
System-level/organisational barriers | Competing academic centres studying the same group or conflicting schedules with other programs, tensions between academic institutions and community centres, relying on referrals from clinicians, professionals’ resistance to patients’ participation |
Health literacy and language barriers | Lack of familiarity with complex scientific and medical language, low level of health literacy, language difficulties |
Research-specific challenges | High commitment of engagement with participants in research, resource-intensive tasks, recruitment difficulties such as problems in finding/recruiting people capable of and interested in participating |