Paper
Monday, November 14, 2005
Recruitment Issues Among Asian Cancer Patients
Hsiu-Min Tsai, MSN1, Hyun Ju Lim, MSN1, Hsing-Mei Chen, PhD2, Chia-Ju Lin, MSN1, Soon Ok Yang, N/A3, Wonshik Chee, PhD4, and Eun-Ok Im, RN, MPH, PhD, CNS1. (1) School of Nursing, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA, (2) School of Nursing, Chang Gang Institute of Technology Chia-Yi Campus, Pu-tz, Chiayi, Taiwan, (3) RHEE Sang Woo/ Devision of Nursing, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Gangwon-do, South Korea, (4) Mechanical Engineering and Biomechanics, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA
| Learning Objective #1: Recognize the recruitment issues among Asian cancer patients
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| Learning Objective #2: Identify the effective strategies for the recruitment of Asian minority groups
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The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the issues raised during the recruitment process of Asian cancer patients for a cancer pain study and provide directions for future recruitment of Asian research participants. Theoretical Basis: Some reported that, in recruitment of Asians, direct recruitment strategies (e.g., face-to-face recruitment) worked better than indirect recruitment strategies (e.g., flyers, emails, newspaper announcement) while others reported the opposite. Design: A cross-sectional comparative design was used. This is a part of a larger study including four different ethnic groups. Sample: 22 Asian cancer patients have been recruited using a convenience sampling method. The recruitment is still going on. Methods: Recruitment has been done through: (a) general and ethnic specific Internet cancer support groups; (b) Asian Internet communities/groups; (c) Asian physician clinics, Asian community and culture centers; and (d) community informal leaders. Research staff held group meetings, discussed issues related to recruitment, wrote memos, and later analyzed the memos using content analysis. The number of participants recruited through each method was recorded and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings: Recruitment through community informal leaders was found to be the most effective: 18 were recruited through community informal leaders while only 3 were recruited through the rest strategies. Lack of English language skills, difficulties in Internet access, and lack of computer skills were major barriers for recruitment of Asians. Flyers in English did not work well compared with flyers in several different Asian languages. The difficulty in recruiting through Asian clinics was partially due to that most of Asian physicians were generalists. Conclusion: In recruitment of Asian research participants, approaches through community informal leaders that consider culturally different situations would work better than other direct or indirect recruitment strategies.