Digital tools for the recruitment and retention of participants in randomised controlled trials: a systematic map.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Recruiting and retaining participants in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is challenging. Digital tools, such as social media, data mining, email or text-messaging, could improve recruitment or retention, but an overview of this research area is lacking. We aimed to systematically map the characteristics of digital recruitment and retention tools for RCTs, and the features of the comparative studies that have evaluated the effectiveness of these tools during the past 10 years.

Methods

We searched Medline, Embase, other databases, the Internet, and relevant web sites in July 2018 to identify comparative studies of digital tools for recruiting and/or retaining participants in health RCTs. Two reviewers independently screened references against protocol-specified

SUBMITTER: Frampton GK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7273688 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature