Seminars may increase recruitment to randomised controlled trials: lessons learned from WISDOM

Clinical trials: Kids are not just little people

Clinical trials are the backbone of modern evidence-based medicine. They are the vital bridge between research-based discovery and cutting edge patient care. Randomized, controlled clinical trials are the gold standard of medical research, providing a method for evaluation and discovery of novel therapies that improve and even save lives. Despite an increase in the number of pediatric and adult clinical trials over recent decades, this growth has not been equal among these populations. The volume of clinical trials involving children lags substantially behind their adult counterparts. Children are not simply little adults. As a result, extrapolating results from adult clinical trials to the treatment of children may be inappropriate and, possibly, harmful. In this review, we discuss the intricacies of performing clinical trials in all patients and stress the unique distinguishing characteristics of pediatric clinical trials.

How to conduct a randomized trial

Randomized controlled clinical trials represent the gold standard of research into health-care interventions but conducting a randomized trial requires careful planning, structures and procedures. The conduct of a clinical trial is a collaborative effort between investigators, participants and a range of professionals involved both centrally and locally in the coordination and execution of the study. In this article, the key steps to conducting a randomized controlled trial are summarized.

The Health Informatics Trial Enhancement Project (HITE): Using routinely collected primary care data to identify potential participants for a depression trial

Background

Recruitment to clinical trials can be challenging. We identified anonymous potential participants to an existing pragmatic randomised controlled depression trial to assess the feasibility of using routinely collected data to identify potential trial participants. We discuss the strengths and limitations of this approach, assess its potential value, report challenges and ethical issues encountered.

Methods

Swansea University's Health Information Research Unit's Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) database of routinely collected health records was interrogated, using Structured Query Language (SQL). Read codes were used to create an algorithm of inclusion/exclusion criteria with which to identify suitable anonymous participants. Two independent clinicians rated the eligibility of the potential participants' identified. Inter-rater reliability was assessed using the kappa statistic and inter-class correlation.

Results

The study population (N = 37263) comprised all adults registered at five general practices in Swansea UK. Using the algorithm 867 anonymous potential participants were identified. The sensitivity and specificity results > 0.9 suggested a high degree of accuracy from the algorithm. The inter-rater reliability results indicated strong agreement between the confirming raters. The Intra Class Correlation Coefficient (Cronbach's Alpha) > 0.9, suggested excellent agreement and Kappa coefficient > 0.8; almost perfect agreement.

Conclusions

This proof of concept study showed that routinely collected primary care data can be used to identify potential participants for a pragmatic randomised controlled trial of folate augmentation of antidepressant therapy for the treatment of depression. Further work will be needed to assess generalisability to other conditions and settings and the inclusion of this approach to support Electronic Enhanced Recruitment (EER).

A randomised controlled trial on the effectiveness of bracing patients with idiopathic scoliosis: failure to include patients and lessons to be learnt

Trials often do not succeed in including as many patients as anticipated beforehand. The aim of this paper was to describe why we were not able to include more than a few patients in our randomized controlled treatment trial on the effectiveness of bracing patients with idiopathic scoliosis, and to describe which lessons can be learnt. A pilot study on the willingness to participate in such a trial was conducted amongst 21 patients and their parents. A description of how we prepared and designed this trial, the problems we faced and how we tried to improve the inclusion are given. A total of four patients were included, and 14 refused to participate in an 18-month period. There were a lot less eligible patients than anticipated (40 instead of 100 per year), and the patients' participation rate was much lower than we had found in our pilot study (21% instead of 70%). The trial failed to include more than a few patients because of an overestimation of the number of eligible patients and because a lot less eligible patients were willing to participate compared to our pilot study. One reason for a low participation rate could be that this trial evaluated a frequently used existing treatment instead of a new treatment, and patients and parents might be afraid of not being treated (despite an intensive secure system for the control arm).

A multistep recruitment strategy to a participant-intensive clinical trial

Adequate access to well-informed study participants is key to rapid recruitment and retention to randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs). We describe a novel seven-step recruitment process for enrolling participants in a recently completed drug and exercise RCT in fibromyalgia. The majority decided not to participate during the screening process. Approximately 7% dropped out after beginning the intervention. All participants were enrolled within 14 months, which was 21 months ahead of the projected timeline. We suggest that this strategy ultimately decreased costs, made efficient use of research staff, and provided a consistent message to participants about the RCT.

Recruitment to multicentre trials--lessons from UKCTOCS: descriptive study

OBJECTIVE

To describe the factors that contributed to successful recruitment of more than 200,000 women to the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening, one of the largest ever randomised controlled trials.

DESIGN

Descriptive study.

SETTING

13 NHS trusts in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

PARTICIPANTS

Postmenopausal women aged 50-74; exclusion criteria included ovarian malignancy, bilateral oophorectomy, increased risk of familial ovarian cancer, active non-ovarian malignancy, and participation in other ovarian cancer screening trials.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Achievement of target recruitment, acceptance rates of invitation, and recruitment rates.

RESULTS

The trial was set up in 13 centres with 27 adjoining local health authorities. The coordinating centre team was led by one of the senior investigators, who was closely involved in planning and day to day trial management. Of 1 243,282 women invited, 23.2% (288 955) replied that they were eligible and would like to participate. Of those sent appointments, 73.6% (205 090) attended for recruitment. The acceptance rate varied from 19% to 33% between trial centres. Measures to ensure target recruitment included named coordinating centre staff supporting and monitoring each centre, prompt identification and resolution of logistic problems, varying the volume of invitations by centre, using local non-attendance rates to determine the size of recruitment clinics, and organising large ad hoc clinics supported by coordinating centre staff. The trial randomised 202,638 women in 4.3 years.

CONCLUSIONS

Planning and trial management are as important as trial design and require equal attention from senior investigators. Successful recruitment needs constant monitoring by a committed proactive management team that is willing to explore individual solutions for different centres and use central resources to improve local recruitment. Automation of trial processes with web based trial management systems is crucial in large multicentre randomised controlled trials. Recruitment can be further enhanced by using information videos and group discussions. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN22488978.