Psychosocial influences on research subject recruitment, enrollment and retention.

Psychosocial factors may profoundly affect the successful implementation of a research study. The purpose of this paper is to describe psychosocial influences on the researcher-participant interaction during: (1) recruitment, (2) enrollment, and (3) retention and to provide guidelines for effective implementation of a study within a clinical health care setting. An interdisciplinary teamwork approach was used to identify and to resolve psychosocial issues. A study of 4781 family planning patients will be used as the case example.