Lessons learnt in recruiting disadvantaged families to a birth cohort study
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Author(s)
Arora, Amit
Manohar, Narendar
Bedros, Dina
Hua, Anh
You, Steven
Blight, Victoria
Ajwani, Shilpi
Eastwood, John
Bhole, Sameer
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2018
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Background:
Dental decay in early childhood can be prevented by a model based on shared care utilising members of primary care team such as Child and Family Health Nurses (CFHNs) in health promotion and early intervention. The aims of this study were to identify the facilitators and barriers faced by CFHNs in recruiting research participants from disadvantaged backgrounds to a birth cohort study in South Western Sydney, Australia.
Methods:
Child and Family Health Nurses recruited mothers-infants dyads (n = 1036) at the first post-natal home visit as part of Healthy Smiles Healthy Kids Study, an ongoing birth cohort study ...
View more >Background: Dental decay in early childhood can be prevented by a model based on shared care utilising members of primary care team such as Child and Family Health Nurses (CFHNs) in health promotion and early intervention. The aims of this study were to identify the facilitators and barriers faced by CFHNs in recruiting research participants from disadvantaged backgrounds to a birth cohort study in South Western Sydney, Australia. Methods: Child and Family Health Nurses recruited mothers-infants dyads (n = 1036) at the first post-natal home visit as part of Healthy Smiles Healthy Kids Study, an ongoing birth cohort study in South Western Sydney. The nurses (n = 19) were purposively selected and approached for a phone based in-depth semi-structured interview to identify the challenges faced by them during the recruitment process. Interviews were audio-recorded, subsequently transcribed verbatim and analysed by thematic analysis. Results: The nurses found the early phase of parenting was an overwhelming stage for parents as they are pre-occupied with more immediate issues such as settling and feeding a newborn. They highlighted some key time-points such as during pregnancy and/or around the time of infant teething may be more appropriate for recruiting families to dental research projects. However, they found it easier to secure the family’s attention by offering incentives, gifts and invitations for free oral health services. The use of web-based approaches and maintaining regular contact with the participants was deemed crucial for long-term research. Cultural and linguistic barriers were seen as an obstacle in recruiting ethnic minority populations and the need for cultural insiders in the research team was deemed important to resolve the challenges associated with conducting research with diverse cultures. Finally, nurses identified the importance of inter-professional collaboration to provide easier access to recruiting research participants. Conclusions: This study highlighted the need for multiple time-points and incentives to facilitate recruitment and retention of disadvantaged communities in longitudinal research. The need for cultural insiders and inter-professional collaboration in research team are important to improve research participation.
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View more >Background: Dental decay in early childhood can be prevented by a model based on shared care utilising members of primary care team such as Child and Family Health Nurses (CFHNs) in health promotion and early intervention. The aims of this study were to identify the facilitators and barriers faced by CFHNs in recruiting research participants from disadvantaged backgrounds to a birth cohort study in South Western Sydney, Australia. Methods: Child and Family Health Nurses recruited mothers-infants dyads (n = 1036) at the first post-natal home visit as part of Healthy Smiles Healthy Kids Study, an ongoing birth cohort study in South Western Sydney. The nurses (n = 19) were purposively selected and approached for a phone based in-depth semi-structured interview to identify the challenges faced by them during the recruitment process. Interviews were audio-recorded, subsequently transcribed verbatim and analysed by thematic analysis. Results: The nurses found the early phase of parenting was an overwhelming stage for parents as they are pre-occupied with more immediate issues such as settling and feeding a newborn. They highlighted some key time-points such as during pregnancy and/or around the time of infant teething may be more appropriate for recruiting families to dental research projects. However, they found it easier to secure the family’s attention by offering incentives, gifts and invitations for free oral health services. The use of web-based approaches and maintaining regular contact with the participants was deemed crucial for long-term research. Cultural and linguistic barriers were seen as an obstacle in recruiting ethnic minority populations and the need for cultural insiders in the research team was deemed important to resolve the challenges associated with conducting research with diverse cultures. Finally, nurses identified the importance of inter-professional collaboration to provide easier access to recruiting research participants. Conclusions: This study highlighted the need for multiple time-points and incentives to facilitate recruitment and retention of disadvantaged communities in longitudinal research. The need for cultural insiders and inter-professional collaboration in research team are important to improve research participation.
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Journal Title
BMC Nursing
Volume
17
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Subject
Nursing not elsewhere classified
Nursing