Table 3 Overview of recruitment strategies applied in this trial and rating of their usefulness in pediatric psychopharmacological trials
| Recruitment strategy | Pros | Cons | General considerations and recommendations | Rating of usefulness in pediatric psychopharmacological trialsa |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contacting local office- or hospital-based psychiatrists/psychotherapists/pediatricians |
- Inexpensive - Targeted |
- Can be difficult when many individual offices need to be contacted or visited in person - Trial needs to be carefully explained to colleague/s, therefore complex and time-consuming - If trial potentially interferes with routine care, support by colleague/s is unlikely - Some physicians concerned to ‘lose patient’ to study site after study closure |
- Personal contact to colleague/s and collaboration needs to be established and is crucial for effective recruitment - Provide colleague/s with flyers/brochures for distribution to their patients - Aspects of the trial design and integration of participation into regular treatment should be discussed - Easy access and contact to trial team essential (e.g., “hotline”) - Concerns should be taken into serious consideration early on, be discussed openly | + + + |
| Contacting self-help/support groups |
- Highly targeted - Useful in diseases with low prevalence - Established network of families interested in progress of research and therapies | - Time consuming |
- Personal contact recommended to establish collaboration - Giving presentations, e.g., to groups of parents, about respective disorder, diagnosis and treatment, the current trial and relevant background information should be considered | + + + |
| Oral presentations at internal meetings of the department/study site |
- Informative - Targeted |
- Time consuming - Short information half-life due to single event character |
- Useful to “get the clinical team on board” (at the own institution) and to facilitate collaboration between clinical care and study/research group - Easy access and contact to trial team essential (e.g., “hotline”) | + + + |
| Participation in internal regular meetings of clinical team |
- Minimizes risk of missing potential participants - Strengthens established collaboration with clinical team | - Time consuming |
- Larger meetings with concise discussion of many patients should be preferred (e.g., admission/discharge planning) - Meetings should be attended regularly (e.g., weekly) and on a long-term basis | + + + |
| Keeping a prescreening list |
- Easy - Minimizes risk of losing track of potential participants - Recruitment efforts are documented | - Time-consuming | - Local data protection regulations and ethical guidelines must be followed (e.g., by pseudonymization of personal data) | + + + |
| Online and social media ads |
- Easy - Cost-free when untargeted |
- Many competing ads - Costly when targeting specific populations |
- Post on social media of institution/hospital should be considered - Can easily be repeated on a regular basis | + + |
| Information on website of department/hospital/research group |
- Easy - Inexpensive - Targeted | - Needs to be actively accessed (in contrast to ads) |
- Information and flyers should be easily visible and accessible for families - Also useful for office-based physicians and other researcher interested in ongoing trials | + + |
| Oral presentations at external meetings/conferences |
- Informative - Raises disease awareness |
- Time consuming - Untargeted - Short information half-life due to single event character |
- Regional and disorder-specific meetings should be preferred - Aspects of the trial design and integration of participation into regular treatment should be discussed - Easy access and contact to trial team essential (e.g., “hotline”) | + + |
| Distribution of printed flyers/brochures in community settings/to the general public |
- Easy - Inexpensive - Raises disease awareness | - Untargeted |
- Should be considered when recruiting patients with high prevalence disorders or healthy controls - Recommended to identify highly frequented settings for the target population beforehand | + |
| Newspaper ads/brief articles |
- Mostly easy - Raises disease awareness |
- Many competing ads - Untargeted - Can be costly - Potentially, ERB approval needed - At times, content wise mutually exclusive opinions/requests from study management, institutional communication, journal editorial office, ERB |
- Should be considered when recruiting patients with high prevalence disorders or healthy controls - Staff should be prepared to face those ‘hurdles’, learn from other sites involved in the trial, be flexible in wording texts. | + |
| Trial website/blog |
- Informative - Raises disease awareness |
- Time and/or cost consuming - Needs to be advertised/made public | - Links to this content should be placed in ads as well as social media and on website of institution/hospital | + |
| Contacting schools |
- Informative - Raises disease awareness |
- Time consuming - Untargeted |
- Local regulations and experiences with school authorities vary widely - Can be considered when school problems or disorders with relatively high prevalence (e.g., ADHD) are a focus of the trial or healthy control subjects are part of the trial design | + |