Assessing effective interventions to improve trial retention: do they contain behaviour change techniques?

Area of Science:

• Clinical Trials
• Behavioral Science
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Clinical trials face challenges in participant retention, impacting study validity.
• Retention interventions often target participant behaviors, such as attending visits or returning questionnaires.
• These interventions can be viewed as behavior change interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and maximize the 'active ingredients' of effective participant retention interventions.
• To code the constituent behavior change techniques (BCTs) within retention interventions.
• To understand the implicit use of BCTs in improving trial retention.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review of existing meta-analyses on effective retention interventions.
• Coding of intervention and comparator materials using the Behavior Change Technique (BCT) taxonomy version 1.
• Independent coding by two authors with consensus reached on disagreements.

Main Results:

• Monetary incentives and electronic prompts were identified as effective retention interventions.
• No interventions explicitly stated a theoretical rationale.
• BCTs were present in both intervention and comparator groups, with differences noted in monetary incentives but not in electronic prompts (except for delivery mode/dosage).

Conclusions:

• Participant adherence to trial procedures (e.g., visits, questionnaires) is a behavior.
• Trialists should consider behavior change principles when designing retention strategies.
• This study provides evidence for the impact of implicit BCTs in retention interventions, suggesting future promise.