Recruiting of and in general practices

Abstract

Background: The general practice is an appropriate setting for timely recognising risk factors as well as associated diseases. Regular appointments and personal relationships between general practitioners and their patients facilitate delivering behaviour change counselling. To investigate routine care as well as evaluating new approaches of behaviour change counselling, research in primary care is essential. Nonetheless, recruitment of and in general practices in Germany can be challenging. Methods: A cluster-randomised controlled trial and a cross-sectional study in general practices will be described. Recruitment targets were n=700 and n=50 patients, respectively. Besides recruitment, study-related tasks in the general practices were offering smoking advice and implementing screening for depression. What went wrong: There have been two challenges: 1) to recruit practices willing to participate in research projects, e.g., more than 1500 general practices had to be contacted to gain 40 for study participation. 2) to recruit patients to be included in the study. Possible solutions: From the general practitioners perspective, lack of time, too much effort and insufficient remuneration are main reasons for not participating in research projects. These aspects should be taken into account when trying to initiate collaboration with general practices. Furthermore, an approach to use clinical electives for recruiting in general practices resulted in achieved recruitment targets and adequate documentation. Conclusions: Involving general practices as early as possible in the research process and modifying procedures to allow for manageable implementation may help to successfully recruit in general practices.