Recruiting hospitalized Mexican American elder adults and caregivers: challenges and strategies

Minority group members' participation in clinical research is essential for eliminating health disparities. Early recruitment procedures for a randomized control trial involving minority elder adults at local hospitals were unsuccessful, with challenges at the hospital and individual levels. These challenges included referrals for home health care being written late during hospitalization, hospital staff being reluctant to assist recruiters, ill minority elder adults, and protective or unavailable caregivers. We met these challenges with evidence-based strategies, including changing inclusion criteria, increasing study staff, branding our study, using a consistently respectful manner, and pacing our process. After revising our approaches in various ways, we recruited close to our goal, with relatively good retention. Participants reported that benefiting the community, rather than monetary reward, was a strong motivator to join the study. Unexpected recruitment expenditures exceeded the recruitment budget. Our experiences include strategies that can be more cost effective in future studies at both hospital and individual levels.