Recruiting and retaining general practitioners to a primary care asthma-intervention study in Australia

The need for more evidence-based interventions in primary care is clear. However, it is challenging to recruit general practitioners (GPs) for interventional research. This paper reports on the evaluation of three methods of recruitment that were sequentially used to recruit GPs for a randomised controlled trial of an asthma communication and education intervention in Australia. The recruitment methods (RMs) were: general practices were contacted by project staff from a Department of General Practice, University of Sydney (RM1); general practices were contacted by staff from an independent research organisation (RM2); and general practices were contacted by a medical peer (chief investigator) (RM3). A GP was defined as ‘recruited’ once they consented and were randomised to a group, and ‘retained’ if they provided baseline data and did not notify staff of their intention to withdraw at any time during the 12-month study. RM1 was used for the first 6 months, during which 34 (4%) GPs were recruited and 21 (62%) retained from a total of 953 invitations. RM2 was then used for the next 5 months, during which 32 (6%) GPs were recruited and 26 (81%) were retained. Finally over the next 7 months, RM3 recruited 84 (12%) GPs and retained 75 (89%) GPs. In conclusion, use of a medical peer as the first contact was associated with the highest recruitment and retention rate.