Recruiting general practitioners in England to participate in qualitative research : challenges, strategies, and solutions

Patel, S; Cain, R; Neailey, K; Hooberman, L

Abstract

In 2012, I conducted my first PhD study exploring general practitioners’ attitudes toward online patient
feedback. After designing the research questions and topic guide to conduct the interviews, I reviewed
existing literature where authors described recruiting general practitioners to take part in research. I
found there was some focus in the literature on the challenges associated with low general practitioner
participation in survey-based and intervention studies, but little that described the process, experience,
and challenges associated with recruiting general practitioners to take part in qualitative research.
Although general practitioners are known to be a difficult group to recruit to take part in research, the
recruitment process I experienced was much more challenging than I had anticipated. This case study
sheds light on my experience of recruiting 20 general practitioners in England to an interview-based
study, and outlines a critical reflection on the eight strategies used for recruitment. I started by using
traditional methods such as postal invitations and faxes to recruit general practitioners. Due to the very
low success rate, I resorted to using more inexpensive and creative methods, such as sending an
invitation letter through email, advertising in general practitioner Email Newsletters, seeking help from
existing research networks, recruiting through friends and acquaintances, and using social media. In
this case study, I also describe the participants’ (general practitioners’) motivations for taking part in the
study, and I conclude with offering suggestions on how to maximize response rates to general
practitioner-based qualitative studies in England.

Citation

Patel, S., Cain, R., Neailey, K., & Hooberman, L. (2017). Recruiting general practitioners in England to participate in qualitative research : challenges, strategies, and solutions. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473994003

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Apr 17, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 28, 2019
• Journal: SAGE Research Methods Cases Part 2
• Book Title: SAGE Research Methods Cases Part 2
• ISBN: 9781473994003
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473994003
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473994003
• Related Public URLs: http://methods.sagepub.com/
• Additional Information: Additional Information : ISBN: 9781473994003; Funders : Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC); Projects : Participation in Healthcare Environment Engineering program; Grant Number: #EP/H022031/1