Translating the QuinteT Recruitment Intervention into randomised trials in the United States of America

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are acknowledged to be the most important and effective study design to evaluate interventions, particularly relating to health and care, but they are difficult to complete. Many RCTs struggle to recruit sufficient numbers of participants, leading to huge wastage of research resources, underpowered trials that cannot answer the question they set out to address, and many RCTs that are not undertaken because recruitment is considered too difficult. The QuinteT (Qualitative research integrated into randomised Trials) Recruitment Intervention – QRI – has been developed and refined by Donovan et al at UoB over the past 25 years. It was started in the ProtecT RCT, comparing surgery, radiotherapy and active monitoring (no immediate treatment) for prostate cancer, and QRIs have been successfully integrated into over 30 other ‘difficult’ RCTs in the UK. There is considerable interest in the US about its potential to be translated to improve recruitment in RCTs there, as many are struggling with recruitment. The funds requested will support some of the costs for Donovan to visit Duke University NC to discuss collaboration and translation with staff involved in the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative and VHA headquarters in Chicago. Donovan will also further develop collaborations with the US researchers working on two major cancer trials.