Recruitment and retention of community-dwelling, aging women in nursing studies.
BACKGROUND
Despite recent attention to women's lack of participation in health research, little nursing literature documents or describes recruitment and retention issues related to an increasingly large segment of the population, aging women who dwell in the community.


OBJECTIVE
An analysis of a subset of published nursing research was conducted to identify: (a) demographics of samples that included community-dwelling, aging women; (b) recruitment and retention issues; and (c) the frequency and completeness with which each of these areas is reported.


METHODS
An electronic database search was conducted for reports of funded nursing research that included women aged 65 and older that were published in a subset of English-language nursing journals between 1994 and June 1999. Research reports in which community-dwelling women were recruited for participation were selected for analysis (N = 50).


RESULTS
Racial composition of the sample was included in 66% of reports; educational and employment status in 68% and 48%, respectively; and marital status in 64%. The majority of participants was White and married. It was impossible to determine the racial and marital status of the remainder of participants because of incomplete or ambiguous reporting. Recruitment and retention issues were addressed in only 23% of relevant reports, but specific recommendations can be derived from these reports to help other researchers.


CONCLUSIONS
It is imperative for nurse researchers to include more information in research reports about their samples of community-dwelling, aging women and their successes and failures with recruitment and retention. This will help future researchers to study the population and will link nursing research to the larger social context of women's lives.
DiMattio
M J
MJ
School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, USA. dimattioma@scranton.edu
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015399:Nursing Research / Q000379:methods*; D018579:Patient Selection; D016387:Women's Health