Quantifying the recruitment challenges with couple-based interventions for cancer: applications to early-stage breast...

Despite mounting evidence supporting the use of psychosocial interventions to promote adaptation to cancer, enrolling participants into these interventions is challenging. This is particularly salient for couple-based interventions, and newer, more targeted recruitment strategies to increase enrollment are needed. However, there have been few published empirical studies focused specifically on recruitment-related variables associated with enrollment into these types of interventions. To better understand how to encourage participation in couple-based psychosocial interventions for cancer, we examined facilitating and impeding factors to enrollment into a couple-based intervention for women with early-stage breast cancer.

In this sample of 99 women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, patient demographic variables and method of approaching eligible patients were examined as predictors of enrollment into a randomized controlled trial comparing couple-based relationship enhancement with treatment as usual.

Results indicated that women were more likely to enroll if they were contacted at home or at a follow-up medical appointment rather than when first diagnosed at a busy multidisciplinary clinic; they were also more likely to enroll the closer they lived to the research facility.

In addition to decreasing participant burden, timing and setting of recruitment efforts may have important implications for enhancing participation rates in couple-based intervention studies for cancer.