Recruitment of family caregivers of persons with dementia: Lessons learned from a pilot randomized controlled trial

Frontiers in Pain Research

Pain Research

Priya Mukhi¹  Keela Herr²  M. Carrington Reid³  Sama Joshi³  Lilla Brody³  Taeyoung Park³  Catherine Riffin³  Karl Pillemer⁴  Kiana Cruz⁵ 

[1] College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States;College of Nursing, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United, States;Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, United States;Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, United States;College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States;Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, United States;

关键词: caregiving;    pain;    dementia;    recruitment;    intervention;    method;    enrollment;    randomized controlled trial;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpain.2023.1125914

 received in 2022-12-16, accepted in 2023-03-13,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Family caregivers play an essential role in supporting the health and well-being of older adults with dementia, a population projected to increase rapidly over the coming decades. Enrolling caregivers of people with dementia (PWD) in research studies is vital to generating the evidence necessary to support broader implementation of efficacious intervention programs in real-world care delivery, but a range of challenges impede recruitment and enrollment of sufficiently large and representative sample sizes. In this article, we characterize the challenges and lessons learned from recruiting caregivers of PWD to participate in a pilot randomized control trial. We utilize Bronfenbrenner's ecological model to categorize the challenges into three levels: individual (i.e., understanding caregivers’ time constraints and motivations), community (i.e., reaching underrepresented populations and accessing caregiver support groups) and institutional (i.e., obtaining informed consent and navigating research registries). We found that establishing rapport and maintaining flexibility with participants was crucial for motivating individuals to enroll in our study. Building trust with local communities by collaborating with support group leaders, appointing a co-investigator who is already embedded within a given community, and establishing equitable partnerships with organizations increased recruitment rates. At the institutional level, engaging experts in regulatory affairs and geriatrics may help overcome barriers in obtaining approval from institutional review boards. We also recommend using research registries of individuals who offer their contact information to researchers. The lessons learned from our research—including the challenges and potential solutions to overcome them—may promote more effective and efficient recruitment in future research.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© 2023 Joshi, Park, Brody, Cruz, Mukhi, Reid, Herr, Pillemer and Riffin.