Strategies for recruitment in general practice settings: the iSOLVE fall prevention pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial

Background: Falls are common among older people, and General Practitioners (GPs) could play an important role in implementing strategies to manage fall risk. Despite this, fall prevention is not a routine activity in general practice settings. The iSOLVE cluster randomised controlled trial aimed to evaluate implementation of a fall prevention decision tool in general practice. This paper sought to describe the strategies used and reflect on the enablers and barriers relevant to successful recruitment of general practices, GPs and their patients.

Methods: Recruitment was conducted within the geographical area of a Primary Health Network in Northern Sydney, Australia. General practices and GPs were engaged via online surveys, mailed invitations to participate, educational workshops, practitioner networks and promotional practice visits. Patients 65 years or older were recruited via mailed invitations, incorporating the practice letterhead and the name(s) of participating GP(s). Observations of recruitment strategies, results and enabling factors were recorded in field notes as descriptive and narrative data, and analysed using mixed-methods.

Results: It took 19 months to complete recruitment of 27 general practices, 75 GPs and 560 patients. The multiple strategies used to engage general practices and GPs were collectively useful in reaching the targeted sample size. Practice visits were valuable in engaging GPs and staff, establishing interest in fall prevention and commitment to the trial. A mix of small, medium and large practices were recruited. While some were recruited as a whole-practice, other practices had few or half of the number of GPs recruited. The importance of preventing falls in older patients, simplicity of research design, provision of resources and logistic facilitation of patient recruitment appealed to GPs. Recruitment of older patients was successfully achieved by mailed invitations which was a strategy that was familiar to practice staff and patients. Patient response rates were above the expected 10% for most practices. Many practices (n = 17) achieved the targeted number of 20 or more patients.

Conclusions: Recruitment in general practice settings can be successfully achieved through multiple recruitment strategies, effective communication and rapport building, ensuring research topic and design suit general practice needs, and using familiar communication strategies to engage patients.

Trial registration: The trial was prospectively registered on 29 April 2015 with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry www.anzctr.org.au (trial ID: ACTRN12615000401550).