Nurses as participants in research: an evaluation of recruitment techniques
Intended for healthcare professionals
Evidence & Practice Previous    

Nurses as participants in research: an evaluation of recruitment techniques

Lauretta Luck Senior lecturer, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Penrith NSW, Australia
Harrison Ng Chok Research assistant, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Penrith NSW, Australia
Lesley Wilkes Professor of nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Penrith NSW, Australia

Background Recruitment and retention of participants, as well as response rates, can be challenging in nursing research. This can be because of the questions asked; the choice of methodology; the methods used to collect data; the characteristics of potential participants; the sample size required; and the duration of the study. Additionally, conducting research with nurses as participants presents several issues for them, including the time needed to participate in the research, the competing commitments for clinical practice, the political and environmental climate, and recruitment itself.

Aim To report on research studies conducted by the authors at a tertiary teaching hospital, to show the lessons learned when recruiting nurses to participate in nursing research.

Discussion The authors discuss factors that supported recruitment of nurses in these studies, including the use of the personal touch and multiple recruitment strategies in a single study.

Conclusion Videos and photography facilitate interdisciplinary research and can be a valuable means of non-verbal data collection, especially with participants affected by disabilities, and can support research methods, such as the use of questionnaires.

Implications for practice Recruiting nurses for research can be challenging. We suggest that researchers consider using more than one recruitment strategy when recruiting nurse participants. Recruitment is more successful if researchers align the aim(s) of the research with nurse’s concerns and contexts.

Nurse Researcher. 25, 2, 44-48. doi: 10.7748/nr.2017.e1546

Correspondence

lauretta.luck@westernsydney. edu.au

Conflict of interest

None declared

Peer review

This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

Received: 19 December 2016

Accepted: 03 May 2017

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