Giving schools a nudge: can behavioural insights improve recruitment of schools to randomised controlled trials?

It is widely acknowledged that recruitment to randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is challenging, particularly trials that operate across multiple sites. A research area in need of further high-quality evaluation, including RCTs, is school-based mental health interventions for refugee children and adolescents. However, engaging schools with interventions and associated evaluations can be challenging. This paper explores the application of behavioural insights, i.e. evidence-based understanding of how people behave and make decisions, to RCT recruitment at the school level via email communications. A pilot study of applying behavioural insights to mail outs attempting to recruit schools to a RCT of a trauma-focused group intervention for refugee children and adolescents experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress is reported. Rates of school involvement between the behavioural insights approach (n = 31) and a standard outreach approach (n = 65) are compared.

Schools were more likely to give a positive response to the mail out designed using the behavioural insights framework than standard outreach. Accounts of recruitment strategies such as this are valuable additions to the literature on RCT methodology given the potential for recruitment issues to affect trial operations.