480 - Research Team Member Assessment of the Recruitment Interaction with Parents for a Neonatal Clinical Trial Improved after the Better Research Interactions for Every Family (BRIEF) Intervention

Poster Number: 480
Publication Number: 480.1618

Background: Recruitment for neonatal clinical trials is challenging due to the vulnerability of the population of eligible infants and families and short enrollment window during a time of parental stress. Recruitment may be particularly difficult for marginalized and minoritized populations, leading to samples that do not include these infants and decreased generalizability of results. Our team previously developed the Better Research Interactions for Every Family (BRIEF) Educational Intervention, an educational intervention for research team members, which aims to improve parental experience and decrease disparities in research participation. A key step toward improving these outcomes is research team members’ ability to implement BRIEF’s objectives in actual research approaches.

Objective: Assess the impact of the BRIEF Intervention on research team member self-assessment of their discussions with parents approached for participation in our partner neonatal clinical trial.

Design/Methods: We piloted the BRIEF Intervention within a partner neonatal clinical trial to assess feasibility, uptake, and impact on research team member self-assessment of their achievement of BRIEF’s objectives during discussions with parents. During evaluation phases both before and after the BRIEF Intervention training, we asked research team members to complete a self-assessment reflecting on the initial recruitment interaction for each parent approached. The ten questions were aligned to the ten primary learning objectives of the BRIEF Intervention. Responses ranged from 1 “did not occur” to 5 “expert level” (Table 1).

Results: Research team member self-assessments were made for twenty-four recruitment interactions between the researcher and parents of eligible infants, including N=10 prior to the BRIEF Intervention and N=14 after (Figure). Scores for two objectives improved significantly (p < 0.05): partnership with bedside nursing and options for participation. Scores for three objectives had a trend toward improvement (p < 0.1): using preferred names, sharing research team’s investment in the trial, and benefiting future infants (altruism) (Table 2).

Conclusion(s): Research team member self-assessment scores increased after participation in the BRIEF Intervention, suggesting a behavior change as intended. Future work must assess intermediate outcomes (e.g., parental perception of their encounter) and more distal outcomes (e.g., enrollment rates) of the BRIEF Intervention.