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Is it time for a rescue recruitment intervention?

Posted Feb 10, 2010 in

Waiting to the very last minute before securing a rescue recruitment solution can be a very costly and risky proposition.  Understanding when to initiate a rescue of your study’s enrollment is a matter of weighing the costs, time and quality benefits of both your current enrollment curve and the rescue initiative itself.

A good rule of thumb to use in most studies is to begin your enrollment curve evaluation at the time point that represents 25% of your enrollment period (3 months for a 1 year enrollment period).  If your study has not enrolled 50% or more of it’s goal within 25% of your enrollment period, there is a strong likelihood that you will fail to meet your enrollment goals by the end of your study period without an intervention.  Keep a watchful eye on your enrollment utilizing weekly enrollment figures to graph the curve and visualize its peak and eventual downturn.

Most sites reach their highest motivation point immediately following the investigator meeting and their enrollment is focused on your new study.  There is a quick peak in site initiatives, utilizing recruitment stipends and placing your study at the top of their list of priorities.  But, site initiated enrollment decreases over time as recruitment stipends are depleted and the challenges inherent in any study enrollment are realized.  Investigator fatigue sets in and coordinators become frustrated with the program.

If the enrollment curve has shown a downturn illustrates a stable but small weekly figure for three weeks it is time to pursue rescue intervention.  Using formula above, this should leave you with approximately 50% of your enrollment period remaining in which to implement your rescue solution.  This will allow your team to maximize the number of solutions available to help secure enrollment.  The longer you wait to begin an intervention, the smaller the pool of applicable solutions and the greater the cost of the initiative.