Learning Objective #1: Identify effective and ineffective strategies for recruiting rural African American women in intervention studies

Learning Objective #2: Discuss recruitment strategies in relationship to at least one model of transcultural nursing

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Background: African American women have a higher mortality from breast cancer than any other racial or ethnic group (Health, United States, 2004). Recruitment of African American women in research needs improvement (Stahl & Vasquez, 2004). Purpose: This session provides a detailed discussion on recruitment and retention strategies used to study behavioral risk factors, psychosocial responses, and breast self-care variables of African American women, guided by a theoretical framework of culturally appropriate interventions. Design: Recruitment of 120 young African American women, 20 to 40 years of age, at high risk for breast cancer in rural areas of the southern United States included recruiting, randomizing, and retaining 26 clusters of 3 to 8 women. Observational process evaluation was completed during data collection over 18 months with one principle investigator. Findings: Churches were the main sites of data collection (65%) along with other community agencies (35%). Five key strategies identified as useful in recruitment and retaining samples included building trust, working within extended networks, using African American teachers, role models, and facilitators, using established social networks, and using personalized, unhurried approaches during sessions. Ineffective methods of recruitment were mailings, flyers, and posters. Overall, the researcher depicted 14% attrition for intervention group and 32% attrition for control group. Conclusions: Recruitment in unfamiliar territory may necessitate longer time periods for data collection to allow for trust building. Collaborating with minority leadership in the community can be effective. Further research is needed to identify effective strategies for recruitment and retention of rural African American women in studies.