Strategies to recruit and retain older adults in intervention studies: a quantitative comparative study

Effectiveness of an individualised occupational therapy intervention programme (ABLE) using adaptational strategies on activities of daily living among persons with chronic conditions: A randomised controlled trial (RCT)

OBJECTIVE

Compare the effectiveness of a problem-solving, individualised, home-based occupational therapy intervention (ABLE 2.0), to usual occupational therapy, on activities of daily living (ADL) ability in persons with chronic conditions.

DESIGN

A single-centre, double-blinded, randomised controlled trial with 10- and 26-week follow-up.

SETTING

A Danish municipality.

SUBJECTS

Persons with chronic conditions experiencing problems performing ADL tasks (n = 80).

INTERVENTIONS

ABLE 2.0 was compared with usual occupational therapy.

MAIN MEASURES

Coprimary outcomes were self-reported ADL ability (ADL-Interview Performance) and observed ADL motor ability (Assessment of Motor and Process Skills) at Week 10. Secondary outcomes were self-reported ADL ability (ADL-Interview Performance) and observed ADL motor ability (Assessment of Motor and Process Skills) at Week 26, and perceived satisfaction with ADL ability (ADL-Interview Satisfaction) and observed ADL process ability (Assessment of Motor and Process Skills) at Weeks 10 and 26.

RESULTS

In total, 78 persons were randomly assigned: 40 to usual occupational therapy and 38 to ABLE 2.0. No statistically significant nor clinically relevant difference between group mean changes in primary outcomes was identified from baseline to Week 10 (ADL-Interview Performance [-0.16; 95% CI: -0.38 to 0.06] and Assessment of Motor and Process Skills ADL motor ability [-0.1; 95% CI: -0.3 to 0.1]). At Week 26, a statistically significant and clinically relevant difference was found in Assessment of Motor and Process Skills ADL motor ability (LS mean change: -0.3; 95% CI: -0.5 to -0.1) between groups.

CONCLUSION

ABLE 2.0 was effective in improving observed ADL motor ability at 26 weeks.

A novel simulation-based approach to training for recruitment of older adults to clinical trials

BACKGROUND

The need to engage adults, age 65 and older, in clinical trials of conditions typical in older populations, (e.g. hypertension, diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer's disease and related dementia) is exponentially increasing. Older adults have been markedly underrepresented in clinical trials, often exacerbated by exclusionary study criteria as well as functional dependencies that preclude participation. Such dependencies may further exacerbate communication challenges. Consequently, the evidence of what works in subject recruitment is less generalizable to older populations, even more so for those from racial and ethnic minority and low-income communities.

METHODS

To support capacity of research staff, we developed a virtual, three station simulation (Group Objective Structured Clinical Experience-GOSCE) to teach research staff communication skills. This 2-h course included a discussion of challenges in recruiting older adults; skills practice with Standardized Participants (SPs) and faculty observer who provided immediate feedback; and debrief to highlight best practices. Each learner had opportunities for active learning and observational learning. Learners completed a retrospective pre-post survey about the experience. SP completed an 11-item communication checklist evaluating the learner on a series of established behaviorally anchored communication skills (29).

RESULTS

In the research staff survey, 92% reported the overall activity taught them something new; 98% reported it provided valuable feedback; 100% said they would like to participate again. In the SP evaluation there was significant variation: the percent well-done of items by case ranged from 25-85%.

CONCLUSIONS

Results from this pilot suggest that GOSCEs are a (1) acceptable; (2) low cost; and (3) differentiating mechanism for training and assessing research staff in communication skills and structural competency necessary for participant research recruitment.

Evaluating a complex intervention addressing ability to perform activities of daily living among persons with chronic conditions: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial (ABLE)

INTRODUCTION

The need to develop and evaluate interventions, addressing problems performing activities of daily living (ADL) among persons with chronic conditions, is evident. Guided by the British Medical Research Council's guidance on how to develop and evaluate complex interventions, the occupational therapy programme (A Better everyday LifE (ABLE)) was developed and feasibility tested. The aim of this protocol is to report the planned design and methods for evaluating effectiveness, process and cost-effectiveness of the programme.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

The evaluation is designed as a randomised controlled trial with blinded assessors and investigators. Eighty participants with chronic conditions and ADL problems are randomly allocated to ABLE or usual occupational therapy. Data for effectiveness and cost-effectiveness evaluations are collected at baseline (week 0), post intervention (week 10) and follow-up (week 26). Coprimary outcomes are self-reported ADL ability (ADL-Interview (ADL-I) performance) and observed ADL motor ability (Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS)). Secondary outcomes are perceived satisfaction with ADL ability (ADL-I satisfaction); and observed ADL process ability (AMPS). Explorative outcomes are occupational balance (Occupational Balance Questionnaire); perceived change (Client-Weighted Problems Questionnaire) and general health (first question of the MOS 36-item Short Form Survey Instrument). The process evaluation is based on quantitative data from registration forms and qualitative interview data, collected during and after the intervention period. A realist evaluation approach is applied. A programme theory expresses how context (C) and mechanisms (M) in the programme may lead to certain outcomes (O), in so-called CMO configurations. Outcomes in the cost-effectiveness evaluation are quality-adjusted life years (EuroQool 5-dimension) and changes in ADL ability (AMPS, ADL-I). Costs are estimated from microcosting and national registers.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

Danish Data Protection Service Agency approval: Journal-nr.: P-2020-203. The Ethical Committee confirmed no approval needed: Journal-nr.: 19 045 758. Dissemination for study participants, in peer-reviewed journals and conferences.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

NCT04295837.

Urban RCT participants were healthier than non-participants or rural women

OBJECTIVE

To investigate sociodemographic characteristics and physical and mental health indicators between participants and nonparticipants of a large-scale 2-year exercise RCT including noninvited women living in nearby rural area in Finland.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING

From a previous OSTPRE study cohort, 914 women (aged 72-84) participated in Kuopio Fall Prevention Study in 2016-2019. The participants were compared to non-participants (n = 4,536) and noninvited OSTPRE women (n = 7,119) living outside the urban recruitment area.

RESULTS

Participants were younger (P< 0.001) with higher education (P< 0.001) and had more often regular hobbies (P< 0.001) and physical exercising (P< 0.001) than nonparticipants or noninvited. They reported better functional capability (P< 0.001), mental (P< 0.001) and subjective health (P< 0.001), lower number of medications (P< 0.001), less fear of falls (P< 0.001), but more frequent falls (P= 0.002) and more often musculoskeletal diseases (P= 0.006).  Participants also showed better functional capacity in the clinical measurements. In register analysis, urban-rural differences in the prevalence of diseases were detected.

CONCLUSION

In population-based exercise interventions, participants are more likely to be better off in respect to physical and mental wellbeing, functional capability and sociodemographic status. Recruiting participants only from cities increases unavoidable selection bias due to urban-rural differences which should be noticed when interpreting and generalizing RCT results.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER

ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02665169.

Participants Attrition in a Longitudinal Study: The Malaysian Cohort Study Experience

The attrition rate of longitudinal study participation remains a challenge. To date, the Malaysian Cohort (TMC) study follow-up rate was only 42.7%. This study objective is to identify the cause of attrition among TMC participants and the measures to curb it. A total of 19,343 TMC participants from Kuala Lumpur and Selangor that was due for follow-up were studied. The two most common attrition reasons are undergoing medical treatment at another government or private health center (7.0%) and loss of interest in participating in the TMC project (5.1%). Those who were inclined to drop out were mostly Chinese, aged 50 years and above, unemployed, and had comorbidities during the baseline recruitment. We have also contacted 2183 participants for the home recruitment follow-up, and about 10.9% agreed to join. Home recruitment slightly improved the overall follow-up rate from 42.7% to 43.5% during the three-month study period.

Occupational therapy addressing the ability to perform activities of daily living among persons living with chronic conditions: a randomised controlled pilot study of ABLE 2.0

BACKGROUND

The ABLE intervention was developed to enhance the ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL) tasks among persons living with chronic conditions. ABLE is a generic, home-based, individualised, 8-week occupational therapy intervention program, developed to be delivered in Danish municipalities. In a previous study, the feasibility of ABLE was evaluated in terms of content and delivery. In this pilot study, the remaining feasibility aspects of a randomised controlled trial including (i) trial procedures (recruitment and retention), (ii) randomisation, (iii) adherence to program, (iv) feasibility of additional outcome measurements, and (iv) access to information on usual occupational therapy were evaluated.

METHODS

The study was conducted in a Danish municipality, using a two-armed parallel randomised controlled design, planning a recruitment strategy including 20 persons living with one/more chronic conditions and experiencing problems performing ADL. The following progression criteria were used to determine if a future full-scale randomised controlled trial was feasible: (i) recruitment (50% met the eligibility criteria) and retention (80%), (ii) randomisation (80% accepted randomisation, procedure was executed as planned), (iii) adherence to program (100% followed the treatment protocol), (iv) outcome measurements (80% of the participants delivered relevantly and fully answered questionnaires), and (v) usual occupational therapy (extraction of needed information was successful).

RESULTS

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the study was truncated resulting in limited but sufficient data to answer most of the study questions. (i) Eighteen of 37 eligible persons (48.6%) were recruited; of those treated (n = 6), all remained (100%); (ii) 18 accepted randomisation (100%), and procedure was effective; (iii) ABLE was delivered with adherence (100%); (iv) 92.3-100% of the participants gave relevant and complete answers in two of three questionnaires; and (v) needed information on usual occupational therapy was extractable in seven of nine aspects.

CONCLUSIONS

Proceeding to full-scale trial is recommendable; however, a few adjustments on outcome measurements, inclusion criteria and extraction of information on usual occupational therapy are needed.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

The study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (Identifier: NCT04295837 ) on December 5th, 2019. Retrospectively registered.

Subscales of the Fear Survey Schedule-III in Community Dwelling Older Adults - Relations to Clinical and Cognitive Measures

Objectives: One major obstacle to the diagnosis and treatment of specific phobias in later life is the lack of assessment tools that are relevant to the fears of older adults. This study investigated the utility of five reliable subscales (Blood/Injury, Agoraphobia, Aggression, Animal/Insect, Social Fears) derived from the Fear Survey Schedule-III, a popular measure of phobic fear, in discriminating older from younger participants.Method: The sample was comprised of 81 younger and 61 older adults who completed self-report measures of anxiety and depression and neuropsychological tests.Results: Older adults scored significantly higher than their younger counterparts only on the Aggression subscale of the FSS-III; whereas younger adults scored significantly higher than the older group only on the Social Fears subscale. These subscales showed slightly different associations with other measures of anxiety, depression, and intelligence across age groups. Within the older sample, scores on the Aggression subscale were significantly higher than all other subscales except for Social Fears.Conclusions: It is recommended that clinicians and researchers use subscale scores derived from the FSS-III, rather than total scores, when treating and studying fears of later life.Clinical Implications: Use of FSS-III subscales in assessment could result in improved detection and treatment of phobias in later life, and thus raise quality of life among the elderly. Older adults' fears of victimization should be prioritized as a possible treatment target in clinical settings.

Implementation fidelity in a complex intervention promoting psychosocial well-being following stroke: an explanatory sequential mixed methods study

BACKGROUND

Evaluation of complex interventions should include a process evaluation to give evaluators, researchers, and policy makers greater confidence in the outcomes reported from RCTs. Implementation fidelity can be part of a process evaluation and refers to the degree to which an intervention is delivered according to protocol. The aim of this implementation fidelity study was to evaluate to what extent a dialogue-based psychosocial intervention was delivered according to protocol. A modified conceptual framework for implementation fidelity was used to guide the analysis.

METHODS

This study has an explanatory, sequential two-phase mixed methods design. Quantitative process data were collected longitudinally along with data collection in the RCT. Qualitative process data were collected after the last data collection point of the RCT. Descriptive statistical analyses were conducted to describe the sample, the intervention trajectories, and the adherence measures. A scoring system to clarify quantitative measurement of the levels of implementation was constructed. The qualitative data sources were analyzed separately with a theory-driven content analysis using categories of adherence and potential moderating factors identified in the conceptual framework of implementation fidelity. The quantitative adherence results were extended with the results from the qualitative analysis to assess which potential moderators may have influenced implementation fidelity and in what way.

RESULTS

The results show that the core components of the intervention were delivered although the intervention trajectories were individualized. Based on the composite score of adherence, results show that 80.1% of the interventions in the RCT were implemented with high fidelity. Although it is challenging to assess the importance of each of the moderating factors in relation to the other factors and to their influence on the adherence measures, participant responsiveness, comprehensiveness of policy description, context, and recruitment appeared to be the most prominent moderating factors of implementation fidelity in this study.

CONCLUSIONS

This evaluation of implementation fidelity and the discussion of what constitutes high fidelity implementation of this intervention are crucial in understanding the factors influencing the trial outcome. The study also highlights important methodological considerations for researchers planning process evaluations and studies of implementation fidelity.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ClinicalTrials.gov , NCT02338869; registered 10/04/2014.

Reasons for Declining Consent in a Population-Based Cohort Study Conducted in a Rural South American Community

There is limited information on participants' adherence and reasons for declining consent in observational cohort studies conducted in remote rural communities. We aimed at sharing lessons learned during the Atahualpa Project, a population-based cohort study conducted in a rural Ecuadorian village. Atahualpa residents aged ≥40 years identified during door-to-door surveys who signed a consent form were enrolled. Annual surveys were conducted to assess the number of participants who moved out of the village, as well as those who died, declined consent, and newly entered the study. Reasons for declining consent were tabulated. Abstracted data included age, sex, education, disability, time between enrollment and declining consent, and reasons for withdrawal. We also counted participants who, despite expressing their willingness to continue in the study, refused specific procedures. After five years of follow-up, 54 (6.3%) of 863 enrolled individuals declined consent. Increasing age and disability had no impact on declining consent. In contrast, refusal was higher among relatives or neighbors of a given participant declining consent. Most people who declined consent did so after one or two years of enrollment. Less than 20% of enrolled individuals refused certain procedures. "Fear of the needle" was the most frequent reason for refusing blood tests, and common reasons for declining complimentary exams were lack of interest and time constraints. Cohort retention in the Atahualpa Project is high. Main reasons for this adherence include adequate selection of the village, detailed planning of procedures, assurance of sponsorship, and field personnel who continuously engage with study participants. This trial is registered with NCT01627600.

Towards Changing the Long Term Care (LTC) Paradigm: Explicating the Concept of Thriving in Older Adults Living in LTC

A phenomenon of interest for nursing is the facilitation of humanistic health care experiences and quality of life (Willis, Grace, & Roy, 2008 ). Inquiry into the concept of thriving as it manifests in the older adult residing in long-term care aligns with this interest. Thriving has been described by scholars in various disciplines but no context-specific definition for the LTC resident currently exists. Contrary to the generally held negative view of LTC, there is emerging evidence that older adult LTC residents "do well" or thrive in this environment.

Characteristics of participants consenting versus declining follow-up for up to 10 years in a randomized clinical trial

BACKGROUND

With patients living a decade or longer post-procedure, long-term data are needed to assess the durability of carotid artery stenting versus carotid endarterectomy. Identifying characteristics of those consenting or declining to continue in long-term follow-up may suggest strategies to improve retention in clinical trials.

PURPOSE

This report describes differences between patients choosing or declining to continue follow-up for up to 10 years in the Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy versus Stenting Trial.

METHODS

Following completion of the primary outcome, patients who were in active Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy versus Stenting Trial follow-up were asked to continue beyond their original 4-year commitment for a maximum of 10 years. The characteristics of those who consented were compared with those who declined. Univariate and multivariable logistic regression were used for analysis, and backwards stepwise logistic regression (the most parsimonious model) was used to determine the factors associated with continuation.

RESULTS

Of the 1921 active Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy versus Stenting Trial participants for whom consent to extend follow-up was requested, 1695 (88%; mean age: 68.4) consented; 226 (12%; mean age: 69.6) declined. Of those who did not consent versus those who consented, 66% versus 48% were symptomatic at baseline (p<0.0001), at follow-up 28% versus 20% were smokers (p=0.009), 85% versus 90% were hypertensive (p=0.01), and 84% versus 94% were dyslipidemic (p<0.0001). Additional factors that differed between those who did not consent and those who consented included the mean number of years in the study at time of consent (4.8 years vs 3.7 years (p=<0.0001)) and patients from sites that enrolled <30 patients compared to sites randomizing 30 or more (70% vs 52% (p<0.0001)). Multivariable logistic regression indicated that those with lesser odds of consenting to the extended follow-up were older (odds ratio: 0.80; 95% confidence interval: 0.67, 0.96), more likely to be symptomatic (odds ratio: 0.58; 95% confidence interval: 0.42, 0.80), smokers (odds ratio: 0.48; 95% confidence interval: 0.34, 0.70), were in the study 5+ years versus <3 (odds ratio: 0.21; 95% confidence interval: 0.13, 0.34), and at a site that randomized <30 patients (odds ratio: 0.46; 95% confidence interval: 0.33, 0.63), while patients with dyslipidemia at follow-up had increased odds of consenting (odds ratio: 2.28 (1.47, 3.54)).

CONCLUSION

Symptomatic status, increasing age, randomized at lower volume centers, and longer time in follow-up were associated with reduced odds of consenting to long-term follow-up. Identifying factors associated with reduced willingness to extend participation long-term can suggest targeted strategies to improve retention in future clinical trials.

Overcoming Recruitment Barriers in Urban Older Adults Residing in Congregate Living Facilities

Background. Participation of minority older adults in mental health research has been limited by mistrust, transportation difficulties, lack of knowledge, and insufficient community partnership. We describe strategies utilized to overcome these recruitment barriers. Methods. Our target population included 553 public housing residents of older adult high-rise buildings in Rochester, NY. We had a two-stage cross-sectional study: Stage 1 was a health survey for all residents and Stage 2 was a psychiatric interview of English-speaking residents aged 60 years and older. Recruitment occurred through mailings, onsite activities, and resident referrals. Results. Stage 1 had 358 participants (64.7% response) and Stage 2 had 190 (61.6% target population response), with higher participation among African Americans. We found some strategies effective for overcoming recruitment barriers. First, we partnered with a community agency and organized onsite educational activities to improve residents' trust. Second, the study occurred entirely onsite, which facilitated participation of functionally impaired residents. Third, onsite activities allowed the residents to learn about the study and complete surveys in person. Fourth, we provided immediate incentives that resulted in many study referrals. Conclusions. Although recruitment of minority older adults presents unique challenges, a multifaceted community-tailored approach mitigated several recruitment barriers in this mental health study.