Engaging pregnant women in observational research: a qualitative exploratory study

Abstract

BackgroundRecruitment of pregnant women to population health research can be challenging, especially if the research topic is sensitive. While many pregnant women may be inherently interested in research about pregnancy, there is the possibility that the nature and timing of the project may give rise to anxiety in some women, especially if the topic is sensitive or it brings about new awareness of potential pregnancy complications. Research staff undertaking recruitment need to be skilled at strategies to manage the environment, and have well developed communication and interpersonal skills to explain and promote the study and facilitate each woman’s informed decision-making regarding participation.However, the skills needed by recruitment staff to successfully engage pregnant women with a research topic are not well understood. This study aimed to address this evidence gap by providing insight into the dynamics between a pregnant woman and recruitment staff at the time of the offer to participate in an observational study about alcohol use in pregnancy.MethodsNaturalistic inquiry guided a qualitative exploratory descriptive approach. Experienced recruitment staff from the Asking Questions about Alcohol in Pregnancy (AQUA) study (Muggli et al., BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 14:302, 2014) participated in individual semi-structured interviews and were asked about their experiences and approaches to engaging pregnant women. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using inductive content analysis.ResultsPregnant women brought with them an inherent interest or disinterest in alcohol research, or in research in general, which formed the basis for engagement. Women responded favourably to the invitation to participate being delivered without pressure, and as part of a two-way conversation. Engagement with a sensitive topic such as alcohol use in pregnancy was facilitated by a non-judgmental and non-targeted approach. Influences such as privacy, distractions, partner’s opinion, time factors and level of clinical support either facilitated or hindered a woman’s engagement with the research.ConclusionsThese results provide an in-depth explanation of barriers and enablers to recruitment of pregnant women in antenatal clinics to studies that may inform strategies and the training of recruitment staff.

The Food, Feelings, and Family Study: Comparison of the efficacy of traditional methods, social media, and broadcast email to recruit pregnant women to an observational, longitudinal nutrition study.

“…The fact that traditional recruitment methods yielded the highest number of participants is not surprising because previous research has found that personable, enthusiastic, non-judgmental, and empathetic recruitment personnel and research staff aid in recruitment efforts [6,54]. Others have shown that recruitment was also improved by working with obstetricians for participant referrals [3,12,49,50], as in the current study.…”

“…Pregnant women report that they do not participate in research studies because they often lack interest in or distrust scienti c research [6,9,10], experience disapproval from friends and family [3,5], and feel as though they do not have time to participate [5,9]. On the other hand, pregnant women indicate they are motivated to participate when they receive personal bene ts, including the potential for improved pregnancy outcome [48,49], health education [50], and improvements to their own health [10,48].…”

Leveraging Digital Technology in Conducting Longitudinal Research on Mental Health in Pregnancy: Longitudinal Panel Survey Study (Preprint)

“…Employ email or IP and time stamp validation to reduce duplicate and invalid participants. 5. Offer an initial incentive at enrollment that is fair but not overly generous to encourage legitimate enrollment.…”

“…4. Making the surveys easy to complete by optimizing them based on device (ie, desktop vs mobile devices). 5. Providing participants with interaction options (ie, text and email), but being careful not to unnecessarily overburden.…”

Leveraging Digital Technology in Conducting Longitudinal Research on Mental Health in Pregnancy: Longitudinal Panel Survey Study

“…In addition, enrolling a representative pregnant population may be difficult, as research has shown that African American pregnant women are less willing to take surveys associated with medical research; this can challenge researchers to construct and maintain representative samples [ 3 ]. It has been shown that building trust is pivotal when conducting research among pregnant women and necessary to increase participation [ 5 ].…”