Objectives/Goals: Clinical trial recruitment needs innovative strategies to increase efficiency. Participant-driven recruitment (PDR) strategies are an advancement of snowball sampling that have been tested in observational studies (e.g., as respondent-driven sampling) but are infrequently used in clinical trials. Methods/Study Population: In preparation for testing participant-driven recruitment as a clinical trial innovation, we conducted interviews with experts (principal investigators, project managers, and methodologists (e.g., biostatisticians)) involved in ongoing trials. The expert’s trials included behavioral, screening, and pharmaceutical therapies. We described the PDR concept to our experts and asked what sorts of trials might be amenable to the approach. We asked experts to discuss when in the course of trial workflow would be ideal for engaging current participants to identify and refer others who might be interested and eligible; and what methods concerns might result from using PDR. Results/Anticipated Results: Experts (n = 10) noted studying disease prevention or screening, or focused on a common condition (e.g., diabetes, hypertension) was most amenable to PDR, whereas rare disease trials would be challenging. Opinions differed regarding when in the enrollment process might be best to engage participants to refer others (time of consent versus after completion of active intervention). From a methods standpoint, common concerns were contamination (if socially connected individuals were randomized to different arms) and that participant-referred individuals would not be independent, thus requiring special statistical considerations. Most experts (8 of 10) expressed interest in learning best practices for PDR (e.g., incentivizing referrals, setting referral quotas and timelines) and implementing the process. Discussion/Significance of Impact: PDR has the potential reduce the time to complete enrollment, and early reports suggest, as referral chains spread through social networks, the heterogeneity and representativeness of the sample increases. Integrating PDR into trials requires a tailored approach.
Houston et al. (Wed,) studied this question.