WIP 92 - Barriers to recruitment and retention: Lessons learned from the Familial, Socioeconomic, and Cultural Factors Affecting Youth Hypertension (FAM) mixed methods study

Poster Number: WIP 92
Publication Number: WIP 92.2553

Background: Optimizing management of hypertension (HTN) in youth is essential. Youth-onset HTN increases the risk of later HTN and cardiovascular disease in adulthood, but families and patients face many challenges in implementing lifestyle management recommendations. The FAM study aims to discover the familial, socioeconomic, and cultural factors affecting management of HTN in youth who are newly diagnosed. It is a longitudinal mixed-methods study of caregivers and youth (ages 7–19 years) attending their first visit to a subspecialty HTN clinic at a single center. However, unanticipated barriers to participant recruitment and retention have been impeding study completion. IRB approval was obtained in June 2023; since then, we have been obtaining written informed consent and assent. Nonetheless, our recruitment rate per month is 9.2% (as of September 1, 2023) and our overall retention rate is 37.5%. For this analysis, we are investigating the effect of implementing several strategies to improve recruitment and retention, such as translating our study materials into Spanish and allowing families to opt for a virtual interview following their first clinic visit.

Objective: Determine if improvements to our study’s method will improve our monthly rates of recruitment, retention, and study completion.

Design/Methods: Caregiver and youth participants are asked to fill out a demographic survey, school meal survey, and participate in individual and group qualitative, semi-structured interviews. Participants are asked to complete a 3-day food diary and families are asked to participate in a second set of individual and group interviews 4 weeks later. All interviews are recorded and transcribed verbatim. We applied for institutional grant funding to support modest incremental compensation of $15 per person upon completion of each set of study procedures. We are recruiting additional study personnel to assist in recruitment and study activities. Following the implementation of these changes, we will compare the retention rates pre- and post-intervention using a paired t-test.