Participant Recruitment & Retention
Participant Recruitment & Retention Services are essential to ensuring that studies enrol the right participants on time and keep them engaged through to study completion.
Recruitment delays are one of the top causes of study failure, making this a key area to address up front.
Our recruitment & retention specialists turn enrolment plans into reality. We model best, realistic and worst-case scenarios and report actual recruitment and revised projections against those targets.
Driving Recruitment With Insight and Impact.
Clinical study recruitment, retention and site engagement activities typically encompass the following components:
Recruitment Strategy & Planning
- Develop study-specific recruitment plans
- Perform participant eligibility analysis based on inclusion/exclusion criteria
- Forecast and support site-level recruitment
- Implement country- and population-specific targeting strategies
- Project recruitment using a risk-based approach (best; realistic; actual cases)
- Report actual enrolment vs. projections on a monthly basis
- Write action plans to address shortfalls in enrolment
- Use newsletters to encourage site engagement
- Carry out quarterly Investigator calls to discuss enrolment challenges and exchange ideas
Site Enrolment Support
- Develop site-level recruitment toolkits and guides
- Track site enrolment performance vs. targets
- Write outreach call scripts, FAQs, and email templates
- Train sites on outreach best practices
- Provide a centralised recruitment helpdesk or concierge service
Recruitment Materials & Campaign Development
- Create Ethics Committee approved participant-facing materials: flyers, brochures, social media ads
- Implement custom landing pages or pre-screening platforms
- Translate and localise study documents
- Coordinate outreach through patient advocacy groups, registries and referral networks
Participant Retention Programs
- Implement visit reminders (text; phone call; app)
- Provide transportation and logistical support
- Develop participant engagement newsletters or educational materials
- Advise on retention incentives (where ethically permitted)
- Write follow-up protocols for missed visits or early withdrawal
Performance Monitoring & Optimisation
- Provide weekly or monthly recruitment reports
- Track site-by-site enrolment via tracking dashboards
- Generate mid-study recruitment campaign refreshers
- Undertake risk mitigation when performance is behind target
- Report screen failure rates and participant feedback and make recruitment adjustments as required