title: Recruitment rates in workplace physical activity interventions: characteristics for success.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To conduct a systematic review to assess recruitment rates in workplace physical activity (PA) intervention studies and describe characteristics of studies with high recruitment rates. Data Source. Electronic and manual searches were conducted.
  
  
  METHODS
  Workplace PA intervention studies that reported the number of employees invited to participate and the number who responded were included.
  
  
  METHODS
  Studies with recruitment rates of ≥70% were categorized as high with the remaining studies (<70%) used as comparison. Key study characteristics were assessed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  An approach called positive deviance was used to identify the extent to which study characteristics were unique to high recruitment rate.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Seventy-six percent of studies failed to report recruitment rates (n = 30 included for review). Studies with high recruitment rates (n = 8) tended to have longer study duration (mean 1.6 years) and target smaller cohorts of employees (mean n = 199) than comparison studies (3.9 months; n = 1241). For recruitment strategies and intervention components of high studies, involvement of employees was driven by the organization, with PA interventions provided as part of the working day in paid time.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings suggest a potential to improve recruitment through targeting small cohorts of employees, incorporating PA as a long-term strategy, facilitating organizationally driven employee involvement, and providing PA interventions during paid time.
authors.affiliation: School of Human Movement Studies, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. g.ryde@uq.edu.au
authors.forename: Gemma C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Ryde
authors.forename: Nicholas D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Gilson
authors.forename: Nicola W
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: Burton
authors.forename: Wendy J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Brown
mesh_terms: D015982:Bias; D015444:Exercise; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D018579:Patient Selection; D012107:Research Design; D017132:Workplace / Q000458:organization & administration*