Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in palliative care often experience recruitment problems. This paper reports on the impact of using different strategies to recruit patients and carers into an RCT involving patient/carer interaction with community pharmacists. The RCT was conducted with palliative care patients and carers from a palliative care service in an outer area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Patients/carers were recruited to assess their medication knowledge after interaction with pharmacists who either had extra education in palliative care, or had no additional education. An initial recruitment strategy utilised palliative care nurses recruiting patients and carers in their homes. This strategy was twice modified during the trial to increase recruitment; patient/carer and pharmacist inclusion criteria were first revised and then the researcher recruited patients and carers directly in their homes. The statistically determined sample size for the study was not achieved. A high attrition rate (79%) occurred despite using three different recruitment strategies. Causes of attrition included patient death and the time period over which the trial was run. Gate-keeping was also a major barrier to recruitment. This study supports previous findings of recruitment difficulties to palliative care trials. Strategies for improving recruitment are suggested which may be helpful for researchers.
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