title: The Effectiveness of Small-group Community-based Information Sessions on Clinical Trial Recruitment for Secondary Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease.
abstract: Effective and practical recruitment strategies are needed to ensure successful recruitment into the Alzheimer disease clinical trials. To facilitate successful recruitment for the NIH-sponsored A4 (Anti-Amyloid treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer's disease, NCT02008357) trial for the secondary prevention of Alzheimer disease, we developed a small-group community information session to attract and recruit potential research participants. After a successful media campaign, 213 participants were screened through telephone for eligibility, identifying 127 potential participants. Participants were given the option of a traditional one-on-one recruitment session or a small-group session. One-on-one recruitment was performed for 15 participants requesting this procedure, and yielded an overall recruitment rate of 67% (n=10). Substantially more individuals (n=112, 88%) requested small-group sessions to learn about the study. After attending the small-group informational sessions, 98% of potential participants self-reported a greater understanding of the study; and the recruitment rate from these sessions was 90%. Small-group sessions not only improved recruitment success rates, but also contributed to significantly shorter median time for consent processes (20 vs. 60 min) and reduced staff time spent on persons not recruited. Small-group education programs are an effective strategy for enhancing recruitment success and facilitating practical recruitment into clinical trials with high recruitment demands.
authors.affiliation: *University of Kentucky Alzheimer Disease Center †Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Departments of ‡Gerontology §Behavioral Science ∥Anatomy and Neurobiology ¶Neurology, University of Kentucky Colleges of Medicine & Public Health, Lexington, KY #Massachusetts Alzheimer Disease Research Center **Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
authors.forename: Sarah D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Tarrant
authors.forename: Shoshana H
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Bardach
authors.forename: Kendra
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bates
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nichols
authors.forename: Jacqueline
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Towner
authors.forename: Clay
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tamatha
authors.forename: Allison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Caban-Holt
authors.forename: Linda J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Van-Eldik
authors.forename: Richard R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.forename: Reisa
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sperling
authors.forename: Gregory A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Jicha
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D055812:Community-Based Participatory Research / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D018579:Patient Selection; D055502:Secondary Prevention; D013689:Telephone