Recruitment and retention challenges in research of palliative care in patients with advanced cancer

Abstract

Recruitment and retention of participants are precious to the success of a study especially in palliative care study. These study areas are threat to both internal and external validity by the nature of patients themselves, disease advancement, and treatment. This paper aims to identify methodological challenge and propose a possible solution for the problem. The methodological issues cover a deterioration in condition, individual feelings of being overwhelmed, distance from home to the hospital, inclusion and exclusion criteria, refusal to continue, and death. The possible solutions for these issues are proposed in terms of being flexible in scheduling appointments and multiple meeting, home visits to eliminate transportation or care giving issues, finding a balance for inclusions and exclusions criteria to answer research question, providing incentive, offering support, and over-sampling. © W.S. Maney & Son Ltd 2011.