Best practice recruitment strategies for supportive care research in pediatric oncology

Introduction
Variations in clinical practice contribute to negative outcomes for children with cancer. Research in this area is imperative to standardise practice, yet such research is challenging, and a significant proportion
of studies fail. A common reason for failure is poor recruitment; strategies to address this are needed.

Methods
Our primary aim was to describe the recruitment strategies and outcomes in a tertiary children’s hospital across multiple observational supportive care studies. Secondary aims were to establish principles to improve both recruitment strategies and the reporting of recruitment. We undertook a retrospective descriptive analysis of the recruitment logs and data from three studies in pediatric oncology. The mean time to recruit one participant was calculated. Common reasons for not approaching eligible participants and reasons potential participants declined are described.

Results
Of the 235 potential candidates across all studies, 186 (79%) were approached and of these 125 (67%) provided consent, with 117 (63%) completing baseline measures. We estimated recruitment per participant required an average 98 min. Four factors are described that influence recruitment and six principles are outlined to maximise recruitment and generalisability of research findings.

Conclusions
We highlight the recruitment experiences across three different projects in children’s cancer supportive care research and provide a roadmap for other researchers planning to undertake clinical research in pediatrics.