What a Dialysis Graft Study Taught Us About Patient Recruitment
Fifteen patients and 15 technicians were planned. Only 5 patients took part.
A manufacturer wanted evidence to support a new dialysis access graft. It planned three phases: surgeon interviews, then two waves of interviews with patients and patient care technicians (PCTs), the dialysis staff who cannulate the graft at each session.
Phase 1 was 15 Zoom interviews of 45 minutes with US vascular surgeons. They gave first impressions of the graft and described the evidence they would need before adopting it.
Phase 2 aimed to interview 15 patients from a clinical study and 15 PCTs. Hour-long Zoom interviews combined open questions with a structured survey.
PCT recruitment went well, reaching a target of 15. Patient recruitment proved difficult. Only five patients were reached.
Reporting the shortfall clearly mattered. Chronically sick patients can be very hard to recruit for studies if they are not encouraged by the healthcare professionals who have enrolled them in the trial. This market analysis needs to be a consideration in the planning stage of clinical trials, as retrospective permission is not easy to obtain.
The study gave the client surgeon and technician perspectives to inform early positioning work and a clear record of what patient recruitment would need next time.
