Striving to recruit: the difficulties of conducting clinical research on elderly care home residents

Abstract

Elderly care home residents are a distinct group of over 440 000 people in over 18 000 homes in England.1 Their mortality,2 health status and needs3,4 are different from those of people of the same age living in their own homes. Indeed, their physical and/or mental frailty and multiple pathology is usually the reason why they live in a residential setting. They are so different in almost every way from people of the same age in their own homes that research outcomes on the latter are simply not valid for them and it is important to conduct research specifically on care home residents. Conducting research on care home residents is beset with constraints and complexities that can impair progress. Careful planning and an extraordinary amount of time and resources are needed to overcome them. We recently completed a large randomized controlled trial of clinical medication review by a pharmacist of elderly residents of care homes.5 In the process we encountered and struggled with many these problems. We hope that, by highlighting the issues and pitfalls, we can help future researchers plan projects involving care home residents.