Incentives

Using the CTSdatabase, a registry with more than 60,000 participants, the study authors found that nearly 4% of participants who were screened for memory loss studies visited more than one site within two years. Potential Alzheimer’s participants who went to additional sites did so predominantly for nonmemory conditions, often major depressive disorder or schizophrenia. According to the study authors, multiple enrollments confound efficacy and safety signals in clinical trials. They speculate...

Patients with Parkinson's disease face barriers that can make it difficult to travel to clinical trials. These include having dementia, loss of driving ability, timing of medications, impact of reduced mobility, and bowel and bladder concerns. Many of these barriers also affect patients with Alzheimer's disease. In this pilot project, researchers sought to assess the feasibility and effect on research participation of prearranged rides through a third-party ride sharing service for research...

The article addresses ways to facilitate study partner participation in clinical trials, such as by removing logistical barriers, offering payment, and providing paid, protected time off for study visits. The authors suggest that incentivizing participation, especially among non-spousal partners, could improve overall recruitment rates and generalizability of study results. Largent EA, Karlawish J, Grill JD. Study partners: Essential collaborators in discovering treatments for Alzheimer's...

Two articles and an editorial address the question of whether paying research participants could be considered coercive. The first article notes concerns about risks, consent, and exploitation. The second article examines coercion as subjection, in which someone’s interests can be partially set back in virtue of being subject to another’s foreign will. The editorial weighs the arguments and views participation as work that should be fairly compensated. Malmqvist E. “Paid to endure”: Paid...

To address the challenges of recruiting patients into early-phase trials of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, a memory clinic was implemented within the clinical trials unit of a biopharmaceutical company.

This article synthesized findings from health research studies that evaluated the cost and effectiveness of different recruitment strategies to inform investigators on designing cost-efficient clinical trials. Researchers identified 10 randomized studies that compared recruitment strategies, including monetary incentives (cash or prize), direct contact (letters or telephone call), and medical referral strategies. Only two of the 10 studies compared strategies for recruiting participants to...

To identify successful recruitment strategies, challenges, and best practices for researchers to engage African American communities in clinical studies, researchers reviewed studies conducted from 2001 to 2012 at an inner-city research center. They contacted the study coordinators to obtain data on recruitment and retention strategies, challenges, and dropout rates, and also interviewed 25 study coordinators on challenges and strategies. Successful recruitment and retention strategies included...

In this U.K.-based study, researchers sought to assess the impact on clinical trial recruitment of an incentive of £100 and whether the offer of this payment attracted more elderly and socially deprived patients. The £100 offer led to small but significant improvements in both patient response to a clinical trial invitation letter and in the number of patients who consented to be screened. Yet, the payment did not attract more elderly or socially deprived patients. Jennings CG, MacDonald TM, Wei...

Individuals engaged in Alzheimer’s disease prevention and treatment clinical trials were surveyed about their motivation to participate in research. Important motivators were the potential to help themselves or a loved one and the potential to help others in the future. Relatively few respondents were motivated by free health care, monetary rewards, or the potential to make others happy. Bardach SH, Holmes SD, Jicha GA. Motivators for Alzheimer's disease clinical trial participation. Aging...

The authors describe strategies used to recruit older adults to a clinical trial of a behavioral intervention to improve adherence to taking antihypertensive medication. Four themes are explored: accessing an appropriate population, communication and trust-building, providing comfort and security, and expressing gratitude. Recruitment success was linked to cultivating relationships with community-based organizations, face-to-face contact with potential study participants, and providing a service...