The Clinical Infectious Diseases Research Group [CIDRI] has conducted high impact research over the last decade in Cape Town specifically in the townships of Khayelitsha and Mannenberg. None of this research would have been possible without robust strategies to recruit and retain study participants. Four different completed studies with different study designs have been selected, which will show the different approaches to participant recruitment into clinical research. This review will evaluate this process in relation to the approved protocol recruitment strategy, the amendments, which were required for modifications, the ability to retain participants to the end and the composition of staff used to achieve study outcomes. This entire process has been recognised as a necessary research skill and the term recruitmentology has become a practice pivotal to the research process. Recruitmentology has been unpacked to illustrate how minorities have been recruited, overlooked and over researched in the United States (US), and that experience has given a new perspective to the processes involved. Although in the South African context we do not have the identical issues to the US, these ideas can be translated in our circumstances, as both research populations can be considered as marginalised. We are challenged in the township of Khayelitsha with service disparities, which are generally impacted by the presence of clinical research groups. Although Khayelitsha has three large Day Hospital facilities, a newly built 150 bedded secondary level hospital and 11 local clinics, offering a consistently high standard of care; it remains a challenge. The CIDRI group partnered with the health services, supporting them with extra staff in the way of nurses, doctors and clinical research workers, while in return benefiting from the health system by being able to conduct effective studies. This has been and continues to be a mutually beneficial relationship, as CIDRI has been supportive to health services and the service has been a research partner of many research protocols including one of the studies being reviewed. Through the process of reviewing the databases of these four different CIRDI studies, we can examine the successes, challenges and a possible model of recruitment in the township of Khayelitsha. These studies have been chosen as they have been successfully completed by CIDRI and the databases have been locked. Each study has a different study design, from a pragmatic randomised control study, a cross sectional study, a seasonal follow-up and longitudinal study. Close attention will be paid to proposed recruitment strategy as per approved protocols, amendments (which impacted the recruitment process), staff structure, time frames of recruitment, retention and impact on study outcomes. This review will attempt to answer the following: 1. Was the proposed recruitment strategy followed as per study design and approved study protocol? 2. Was the overall recruitment impacted by staffing structure and allocated recruitment time frames? 3. How were study outcomes impacted by recruitment and retention? 4. Tuberculosis/Human Immuno-deficiency Virus TB/HIV were the diseases of study in all four studies, do these two diseases have specific challenges which impact recruitment and retention?
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uct/oai:localhost:11427/29769 |
| Date | 21 February 2019 |
| Creators | Goliath, René |
| Contributors | Zemanay, Widaad |
| Publisher | University of Cape Town, Faculty of Health Sciences, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Masters Thesis, Masters, MPhil |
| Format | application/pdf |
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