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Recruiting primary care physicians to qualitative research: Experiences and recommendations from a childhood cancer survivorship study
Author(s) -
Signorelli Christina,
Wakefield Claire E.,
Fardell Joanna E.,
ThorntonBenko Elysia,
Emery Jon,
McLoone Jordana K.,
Cohn Richard J.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
pediatric blood and cancer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.116
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1545-5017
pISSN - 1545-5009
DOI - 10.1002/pbc.26762
Subject(s) - medicine , family medicine , primary care , survivorship curve , phone , qualitative research , childhood cancer , qualitative property , cancer , social science , linguistics , philosophy , sociology , computer science , machine learning
Background Primary care physicians (PCPs) are essential for healthcare delivery but can be difficult to recruit to health research. Low response rates may impact the quality and value of data collected. This paper outlines participant and study design factors associated with increased response rates among PCPs invited to participate in a qualitative study at Sydney Children's Hospital, Australia. Procedure We invited 160 PCPs by post, who were nominated by their childhood cancer patients in a survey study. We followed‐up by telephone, email, or fax 2 weeks later. Results Without any follow‐up, 32 PCPs opted in to the study. With follow‐up, a further 42 PCPs opted in, with email appearing to be the most effective method, yielding a total of 74 PCPs opting in (46.3%). We reached data saturation after 51 interviews. On average, it took 34.6 days from mail‐out to interview completion. Nonrespondents were more likely to be male ( P = 0.013). No survivor‐related factors significantly influenced PCPs’ likelihood of participating. Almost double the number of interviews were successfully completed if scheduled via email versus phone. Those requiring no follow‐up did not differ significantly to late respondents in demographic/survivor‐related characteristics. Conclusion PCP factors associated with higher opt in rates, and early responses, may be of interest to others considering engaging PCPs and/or their patients in cancer‐related research, particularly qualitative or mixed‐methods studies. Study resources may be best allocated to email follow‐up, incentives, and personalization of study documents linking PCPs to patients. These efforts may improve PCP participation and the representativeness of study findings.