Overcoming the challenges of recruiting and interviewing patients following critical illness.

BACKGROUND: The strict restrictions implemented in England during the COVID-19 pandemic meant it was no longer possible to recruit or interview participants in person. However, virtual recruitment and interviews are not without their challenges, particularly when exploring sensitive topics. AIM: To discuss how to overcome some of the challenges involved in recruiting and interviewing participants who have been critically ill with COVID-19. DISCUSSION: An exploratory, descriptive study was conducted involving interviews with 20 people who had been critically ill with COVID-19 and had been discharged from two community-based healthcare settings in London, England. Participants were interviewed at home after being discharged from hospital after at least one month. The sensitivity of the research topic meant strategies for recruiting and interviewing needed to be adapted, including involving patient experience facilitators, using virtual interviews, managing the distress of participants and self-care for the researchers. CONCLUSION: The adaptations used in this study can be used in research involving people who have been critically ill. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Researchers can explore innovative ways to recruit participants using hospital or community staff who are not usually involved in research. Virtual interviews require additional skills, such as building rapport with participants, so may require additional training. A distress protocol for participants should always be considered when discussing sensitive topics. Self-care and debrief strategies for interviewers are also critical.

Research behind a webcam: an exploration of virtual interviewing with children and young people.

BACKGROUND: Societal use of digital technology rapidly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Face-to-face services converted to online provision where possible. This affected many nurse researchers. AIM: To explore conducting research interviews online with children and young people (CYP) about sensitive topics. DISCUSSION: This article considers digital inclusion, as well as ethical issues surrounding safety, support and consent, along with choosing tools for collecting data. It also presents a discussion of physical proximity in qualitative interviews with this population and its role in data quality. The authors investigate benefits in the context of researchers' personal experiences. They acknowledge the disadvantages of conducting interviews online and discuss ways to mitigate these. CONCLUSION: The advantages for researchers include cost-effectiveness, time-efficiency and greater geographical reach of participants. However, CYP's perspectives are unknown and the specific ethical issues of using this method with CYP need careful consideration. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: More research is needed to examine virtual interviews from the perspectives of CYP as participants. Virtual acquisition of consent and assent should be investigated to standardise good research practices.

Engaging nurses in patient recruitment to research trials in the emergency department.

Research is essential for the implementation of evidence-based practice and can lead to improvements and innovations in care delivery. Although ultimately beneficial for patients and staff, the data collection involved in research often presents challenges, particularly in the emergency department (ED) setting. This article describes the challenges of undertaking a feasibility trial in a city centre ED. The target research population were adult patients who presented to the ED with an issue related to opioid misuse, for example opioid overdose, injection site wounds and/or abscess, or injury sustained during opioid intoxication. Challenges experienced during this trial included a demanding work environment, ED attendees not being suitable for recruitment into research, and suspension of the trial during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The author details the strategies introduced to ensure effective patient recruitment to the trial, including nurse secondment onto the research team, offering incentives, raising awareness of the trial among ED staff and implementing flexible training. These strategies continued to be effective after a period of suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 on doctoral research: adapting to the challenges and the opportunities of disruption.

BACKGROUND: The author is a professional doctorate student and full-time nurse in an education role in a UK NHS Trust. COVID-19 caused a major disruption to her research, which focused on nursing workforce development in primary care. She received ethical approval for the research in February 2020 and had just begun to collect data as the country entered its first period of lockdown and all activity not related directly to COVID-19 was sidelined. AIM: To share the author's reflections on this experience and make recommendations that may help others whose research is disrupted. DISCUSSION: The author had not considered in her plans the disruption that would be caused by COVID-19, but she adapted her study's design to minimise some of its effects and also discovered some new opportunities. CONCLUSION: Nurse researchers whose studies are disrupted can adapt to overcome the challenges and try to find new opportunities. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The author hopes that sharing her reflections will encourage other nurse researchers who face unexpected disruptions to their research.

Together We Make the Difference: National Strategy for Recruitment and Participation in Alzheimer's and Related Dementias Clinical Research.

The National Alzheimer's Project Act identifies the effective treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's by 2025 as an urgent public health mission. This priority is reflected in the recent increases in public funding that is accelerating Alzheimer's and related dementias research. Many drugs and clinical interventions are in rapid development, with the promising ones moving to clinical trials to be tested. There are currently more than 200 on-going clinical trials, seeking more than 270,000 participants, which will require screening of more than a million individuals. With the race to treatment, how inclusive will screenings be to ensure diversification of the citizens volunteering to become trial participants? Underrepresented groups are chronically under-enrolled in clinical research studies. This under-enrollment leads to conclusions about disease risk factors and processes without all the necessary data because the studies are not representative of all people and all life experiences.