A recent study carried out by Samantha Warren from Bath R&D and Dr Nick Jones from St Chad's Surgery, with help from BARONET (Bath Area Research Organisation Network), sought to understand the reasons why some primary care patients decide not to take part in research studies and to use the findings to help make future research studies better and increase patient participation.
To help us with this 40 primary care patients, who had previously been asked to take part in a commercial research study but had decided not to, completed a short questionnaire designed to find out the reasons why. The questionnaire was developed with help from members of Bath R&D's PPI Participate Network.
The results found the main barriers to taking part in commercial research studies for primary care patients were not having enough time (40%) and the research study involving too many visits to their GP practice (53%), a finding that we would like to look into further.
Other barriers included patients having too many family commitments (30%) and not being able to visit their GP practice during the day (20%). Positively only 10% of the respondents gave not being interested in research as a reason for not taking part, a finding that suggests patients are generally keen to take part if they can.
Based on the findings a number of key recommendations were made to overcome barriers to participation which included more flexible appointments for patients and giving patients a clear timeline of the study that shows how many visits to their GP practice would be needed and how often.
The patients who completed the questionnaire were from Bath and the surrounding towns, 45% were male and 55% were female, and age range was 26 years to 86 years. If you would like further information please contact Samantha Warren at s.warren@bath.ac.uk.