Patient Recruitment in Clinical Trials by Bert Spilker
In this volume, two specialists guide investigators step-by-step in developing and implementing a strategy for a successful patient recruitment. The authors detail practical approaches to preventing or solving the problems that can arise in every phase of the recruitment process from identifying sources of patients, requesting referrals from physicians, contacting and screening patients, and obtaining informed consent, to training a recruitment staff, budgeting costs, establishing goals, assessing progress and rescuing a clincial trial that is not reaching patient recruitment goals. The book contains samples of newspaper advertisements and brochures used to recruit patients, newspaper stories published in response to press releases about clinical trials, letters sent to physicians to request patient referrals, and other materials that can serve as practical models. The authors also offer advice on publishing patient recruitment data and explain how such data affect the extrapolation of clincial trial results.