Barriers for Participation

Preemptively identifying the barriers for your potential participants may yield significant improvements in your recruitment campaigns. It is important to note that "Barriers", as discussed below, also include beliefs; so be sure to consider possible misconceptions or assumptions your target population may have.

Below are some of the more common barriers reported by participants of various clinical and rehabilitation studies.

• Difficulty accessing the research site (Mapstone 2007)
• Insufficient and inflexible time for appointments (Mapstone 2007)
• Undesired experimental design (Patel 2003)
  
• Requirement of regular or costly travel to investigation site (Patel 2003)
• Lengthy or frequent appointments required (Patel 2003)
• Tedious, repetitive and lengthy questionnaires (Patel 2003)
• Discontinuation of current treatment (Patel 2003)
• Risk of adverse side-effects from starting new treatment (Patel 2003)
• Risk of being randomised to a placebo group (Patel 2003)

Consider if any of these barriers exist in your study (even if a potential participant may incorrectly assume they exist), and do what you can to work around them and look to provide alternatives or reimbursements to balance the participants efforts.

Also see Motivation for participation

References

• Mapstone J., Elbourne D., Roberts I.G. Strategies to improve recruitment to research studies. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007:2
• Patel M.X., Doku V., Tennakoon L. (2003) Challenges in recruitment of research participants. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment; 9(3)