The ASCEnD trial is comparing 2 different medications to determine whether they are an effective treatment for bipolar depression.
There are 2 recruitment routes into the trial: referral via clinicians (in primary or secondary care) and self-referral. The trial team utilised Be Part of Research, the NIHR’s online research registry, to support recruitment through the self-referral route.
Emma Clark, trial manager said: “Be Part of Research has been really helpful in the promotion of the trial and making sure that we’re reaching our population. Trying to find eligible participants through the secondary care and primary care routes can be really difficult, so being able to direct people towards the self-referral route has really helped our recruitment.”
Of the 189 people who have currently self-referred to the trial, 121 (64%) found out about ASCEnD through Be Part of Research. 76 of those were potentially eligible to take part in the trial and could be invited for an in-person screening visit.
Reaching interested participants
Emma added: “The main driving force for a successful recruit is if the participant themself is keen and they want to find out more and be involved. With Be Part of Research, you’ve got people who are already interested in research and they want to do more. We used the Research+Me platform to pre-screen potential participants from Be Part of Research so that we weren’t overwhelmed with referrals. They ultimately might not be eligible, but at least you’ve taken the first step in finding people who are interested in taking part in research.
“We’ve done 2 mailouts through Be Part of Research and off the back of them we’ve seen spikes in interest from potential participants. That shows that it works."
"It’s also been fantastic to give people the opportunity to take part in research that they might never have heard of otherwise.”
- Emma Clark
Spreading the word
Emma has been so happy with the service from Be Part of Research that she’s keen to let others know about the benefits of the service. She said: “I’m going to give a talk to the Newcastle Clinical Trials Unit about our experience with Be Part of Research. We run quite a few trials here and it’s a good tool for recruitment. It’s an easy service to use and it worked really well.”
Find out more about which studies can use Be Part of Research and complete our study registration form to get started.
