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. 2001 Winter;48(1):3–8.

Recruiting phobic research subjects: effectiveness and cost.

T Kaakko 1, H Murtomaa 1, P Milgrom 1, T Getz 1, D S Ramsay 1, S E Coldwell 1
PMCID: PMC2007331  PMID: 11495403

Abstract

Efficiently enrolling subjects is one of the most important and difficult aspects of a clinical trial. This prospective study evaluated strategies used in the recruitment of 144 dental injection phobics for a clinical trial evaluating the effectiveness of combining alprazolam with exposure therapy. Three types of recruitment strategies were evaluated: paid advertising, free publicity, and professional referral. Sixty-three percent of subjects were enrolled using paid advertising (the majority of them from bus advertisements [27.0%], posters on the University of Washington campus [20.1%], and newspaper advertisements [13.2%]). Free publicity (eg, television coverage, word of mouth) yielded 18.8% of enrolled subjects and professionaL referrals 14.6% of subjects. The average cost (1996 dollars) of enrolling 1 subject was $79. Bus and poster advertising attracted more initial contacts and yielded the greatest enrollment.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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