title: Community-based recruitment of patients with COPD into clinical research.
abstract: Identifying subjects for clinical trials is difficult and the evidence base for recruitment strategies is limited, particularly in the field of COPD. We compared the efficiency and patient characteristics of different community-based recruitment strategies during a non-commercial COPD trial in the UK. Recruiting from general practice COPD registers was less efficient and identified patients with significantly milder disease than recruiting through pulmonary rehabilitation and patient groups. We report our experience and propose that pulmonary rehabilitation and patient groups may represent an enriched pool of COPD patients to recruit into clinical trials.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  EudraCT 2011-001063-43.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Respiratory Medicine, University College London Medical School, London, UK.
authors.forename: Simon E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Brill
authors.affiliation: Centre for Respiratory Medicine, University College London Medical School, London, UK.
authors.forename: Ethaar
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: El-Emir
authors.affiliation: Centre for Respiratory Medicine, University College London Medical School, London, UK.
authors.forename: James P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Allinson
authors.affiliation: Centre for Respiratory Medicine, University College London Medical School, London, UK.
authors.forename: Gavin C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Donaldson
authors.affiliation: Department of Primary Care & Population Health, University College London Medical School, London, UK.
authors.forename: Irwin
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Nazareth
authors.affiliation: Centre for Respiratory Medicine, University College London Medical School, London, UK.
authors.forename: Jadwiga A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Wedzicha
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods*; D058006:General Practice / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D018579:Patient Selection; D029424:Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive / Q000628:therapy*; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: COPD Epidemiology; Pulmonary Rehabilitation