PURPOSE: To evaluate two recruitment strategies used during the full-scale randomized, placebo-controlled Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) at one clinical center. BACKGROUND: Recruitment of participants to cancer prevention trials is challenging and costly and more efficient methods are needed. METHODS: SELECT participants were males ≥60 years old who were solicited with two recruitment strategies. In the control strategy, potential participants, identified through purchased mailing lists, were sent a SELECT invitation letter. In the 'spouse' strategy, letters were sent to married postmenopausal women already participating in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) at our clinical center asking them to provide an enclosed SELECT invitation letter (identical to the one in the control strategy) to the 'man in her life'. Our hypothesis was that SELECT recruitment of men would be enhanced by this indirect mailing to their spouses already participating in a similar program. RESULTS: In the control strategy, 183,315 invitation letters were mailed to 60,000 men; cumulative response was 2.16%; 600 men ultimately enrolled in SELECT (15.1% of respondents) for a mailing recruitment cost of $259 per participant. In the spouse strategy, 800 women participating in WHI clinical studies had husbands; of the 2214 invitation letters mailed to this group of women, cumulative response was 2.75%; 34 men ultimately enrolled in SELECT (55.7% of respondents) for a mailing recruitment cost of $59 per participant. LIMITATION: Process information on how invitation letters were handled in the spouse strategy was not collected. CONCLUSION: A direct mail recruitment strategy was successful in recruiting men to a cancer prevention trial. A recruitment strategy involving indirect mailing to married women participating in a similar research program in the same center did not increase initial response substantially, but a higher proportion of respondents ultimately entered the prevention trial.
RCT Entities:
PURPOSE: To evaluate two recruitment strategies used during the full-scale randomized, placebo-controlled Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) at one clinical center. BACKGROUND: Recruitment of participants to cancer prevention trials is challenging and costly and more efficient methods are needed. METHODS: SELECT participants were males ≥60 years old who were solicited with two recruitment strategies. In the control strategy, potential participants, identified through purchased mailing lists, were sent a SELECT invitation letter. In the 'spouse' strategy, letters were sent to married postmenopausal women already participating in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) at our clinical center asking them to provide an enclosed SELECT invitation letter (identical to the one in the control strategy) to the 'man in her life'. Our hypothesis was that SELECT recruitment of men would be enhanced by this indirect mailing to their spouses already participating in a similar program. RESULTS: In the control strategy, 183,315 invitation letters were mailed to 60,000 men; cumulative response was 2.16%; 600 men ultimately enrolled in SELECT (15.1% of respondents) for a mailing recruitment cost of $259 per participant. In the spouse strategy, 800 women participating in WHI clinical studies had husbands; of the 2214 invitation letters mailed to this group of women, cumulative response was 2.75%; 34 men ultimately enrolled in SELECT (55.7% of respondents) for a mailing recruitment cost of $59 per participant. LIMITATION: Process information on how invitation letters were handled in the spouse strategy was not collected. CONCLUSION: A direct mail recruitment strategy was successful in recruiting men to a cancer prevention trial. A recruitment strategy involving indirect mailing to married women participating in a similar research program in the same center did not increase initial response substantially, but a higher proportion of respondents ultimately entered the prevention trial.
Authors: Nagi Kumar; Theresa Crocker; Tiffany Smith; Julio Pow-Sang; Philippe E Spiess; Kathleen Egan; Gwen Quinn; Michael Schell; Said Sebti; Aslam Kazi; Tian Chuang; Raoul Salup; Mohamed Helal; Gregory Zagaja; Edouard Trabulsi; Jerry McLarty; Tajammul Fazili; Christopher R Williams; Fred Schreiber; Joel Slaton; J Kyle Anderson Journal: Contemp Clin Trials Date: 2011-11-11 Impact factor: 2.226
Authors: Nagi B Kumar; Gwendolyn P Quinn; Mark G Alexandrow; Jhanelle Gray; Michael Schell; Steve Sutton; Eric B Haura Journal: J Clin Trials Date: 2014-09
Authors: Sravya Kakumanu; Braden J Manns; Sophia Tran; Terry Saunders-Smith; Brenda R Hemmelgarn; Marcello Tonelli; Ross Tsuyuki; Noah Ivers; Danielle Southern; Jeff Bakal; David J T Campbell Journal: Trials Date: 2019-10-07 Impact factor: 2.279
Authors: Joanna C Crocker; Ignacio Ricci-Cabello; Adwoa Parker; Jennifer A Hirst; Alan Chant; Sophie Petit-Zeman; David Evans; Sian Rees Journal: BMJ Date: 2018-11-28