Abstract
This study compares the efficiency of two methods of recruitment into a randomised controlled trial examining the cost-effectiveness of water therapy for elderly people with lower limb osteoarthritis. The direct cost of recruiting patients via general practice was 27.66 Pounds per patient (1.1 personnel hours/patient). The cost per recruited patient from a local newspaper article was 2.72 Pounds (0.2 personnel hours/patient). The cost differential between the two recruitment methods was largely owing to poor administration practices, difficulties in accessing patient information, and difficulties in contacting patients from the general practice computer database.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (58.6 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Anderson L. A., Fogler J., Dedrick R. F. Recruiting from the community: lessons learned from the diabetes care for older adults project. Gerontologist. 1995 Jun;35(3):395–401. doi: 10.1093/geront/35.3.395. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Bellamy N., Buchanan W. W., Goldsmith C. H., Campbell J., Stitt L. W. Validation study of WOMAC: a health status instrument for measuring clinically important patient relevant outcomes to antirheumatic drug therapy in patients with osteoarthritis of the hip or knee. J Rheumatol. 1988 Dec;15(12):1833–1840. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Peto V., Coulter A., Bond A. Factors affecting general practitioners' recruitment of patients into a prospective study. Fam Pract. 1993 Jun;10(2):207–211. doi: 10.1093/fampra/10.2.207. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Tognoni G., Alli C., Avanzini F., Bettelli G., Colombo F., Corso R., Marchioli R., Zussino A. Randomised clinical trials in general practice: lessons from a failure. BMJ. 1991 Oct 19;303(6808):969–971. doi: 10.1136/bmj.303.6808.969. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ware J. E., Jr, Sherbourne C. D. The MOS 36-item short-form health survey (SF-36). I. Conceptual framework and item selection. Med Care. 1992 Jun;30(6):473–483. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- van der Windt D. A., Koes B. W., van Aarst M., Heemskerk M. A., Bouter L. M. Practical aspects of conducting a pragmatic randomised trial in primary care: patient recruitment and outcome assessment. Br J Gen Pract. 2000 May;50(454):371–374. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]