Enhancing community pharmacists' role in research: Insights and challenges in recruiting through pharmacy...

Engaging in research can enhance community pharmacist professional satisfaction, expose pharmacists to practice innovations, and forge stronger connections with academic institutions. Previous research has explored pharmacists' willingness to join a practice-based research network (PBRN) and the steps taken to launch a new PBRN. Several papers describe recruitment experiences for PBRN projects for other clinician PBRNs, such as physicians. While experiences recruiting pharmacists for research projects in general have been reported, no study yet has shared recruitment experiences for pharmacy PBRN projects.

The objective of this research was to describe the experience of recruiting community pharmacies for a large, multi-PBRN, project.

Data were collected from researcher records and community pharmacists in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as part of a broader study aimed at implementing tablet-based technology (PatientToc) to enhance medication adherence. This paper describes the recruitment of community pharmacies for a Pilot Aim, followed by a Scaling Aim. Data on pharmacy characteristics, recruitment process characteristics, timeline (e.g., number of contacts between the research team and pharmacies, days between a pharmacy expressing interest in the project and enrollment), and participants' perceptions of participation in the project were collected from researcher records and through self-administered surveys. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze all data.

Fifteen pharmacies were enrolled. The research team initiated contact more often than the pharmacy site. On average, the team initiated contact 5.7 times whereas the pharmacy site initiated contact 1.8 times. Recruitment went faster in the Scaling Aim (28.3 days to determine eligibility compared to 91.0 days to determine eligibility in the Pilot Aim) Overall, pharmacists expressed satisfaction with participation expectations, communication, the study topic, and financial compensation. However, pharmacists struggled with the value proposition of the intervention, which impacted recruitment and retention.

Recruitment via pharmacy PBRNs demands substantial time and resources. It is also critical that pharmacy teams see a clear value proposition in proposed interventions. Our experiences point to several recommendations that pharmacy and other PBRN researchers can consider when planning a new project.