A Personalized, Symptom-Based Approach to Boost Research Participation in Hospitalized Older Adults

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Clinical Research
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Delirium is prevalent in hospitalized older adults, leading to adverse outcomes.
• Wearable devices offer potential for continuous delirium monitoring due to its fluctuating nature.
• Low enrollment rates were observed in a wearable electroencephalography (EEG) study for delirium among older adults and non-neurology patients.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate patient and community perspectives on inpatient wearable research.
• To adapt recruitment protocols for a wearable EEG delirium study to enhance enrollment.
• To address challenges in recruiting older hospitalized patients for clinical research.

Main Methods:

• Approached hospitalized patients for an observational, wearable EEG delirium study, recording enrollment and declination reasons.
• Conducted a community panel with patients, families, and caregivers to understand recruitment barriers.
• Refined recruitment by personalizing symptom relevance and providing educational materials on delirium.

Main Results:

• Initial enrollment was 18.5%; wearable EEG was a minor deterrent (8.8%).
• Personalizing recruitment to highlight relevant symptoms, like sleep disturbance, significantly increased enrollment to 30.1% (p<0.001).
• Enrollment improved for older adults and non-neurology patients; additional educational materials did not further impact rates.

Conclusions:

• Recruiting older hospitalized patients for research is feasible.
• Highlighting personally relevant symptoms significantly improves enrollment in inpatient studies.
• Tailoring recruitment strategies is key to overcoming participation barriers in clinical research.