Developing a Patient and public involvement Intervention to enhance Recruitment and Retention in Surgical Trials (PIRRIST)
Latest news
Our PPI guidance for Chief Investigators of surgical trials is available to download here.
For an up-to-date list of reports and publications from the PIRRIST project, please click here.
Thank you to everyone who took part in the PIRRIST project - it would not have been a success without you!
Background
Clinical trials, including surgical trials, often struggle to recruit patient participants and keep them in the trial (retention). These difficulties can mean a trial takes longer, costs more money, or even fails completely.
Patient and public involvement (PPI) is research being carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ patients and/or members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them. PPI in designing and doing trials has the potential to enhance recruitment and retention, but the evidence for this is weak at best. We also don’t know what kind of PPI is likely to lead to the biggest improvements in recruitment and retention.
Aims
We wanted to investigate these issues by developing and testing a PPI ‘intervention’ aimed at improving recruitment and/or retention in surgical trials (including trials of surgical procedures and trials of other interventions [e.g. drugs, devices, dressings, physiotherapy] in adult surgical patients before, during or after surgery).
We planned to develop an intervention that is as practical and useful as possible by involving surgical trial investigators, administrators, PPI coordinators and PPI contributors (patients and members of the public involved in surgical trials) in the development process. We invited people in these roles across the UK to take part from September 2015. The project consisted of several phases including surveys, focus groups and a consensus workshop.
We hoped that this exciting project would improve our understanding of PPI impact and of recruitment and retention challenges in surgical trials, as well as providing an evidence-based PPI intervention which could be realistically used in practice.
Project team
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Health Experiences Institute, University of Oxford and NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre |
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Clinical Trial Service Unit, Nuffield Department of Population Health and MRC CTSU Hub for Trials Methodology Research, University of Oxford |
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Jennifer Bostock |
Lay Partner |
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Alan Chant |
Patient Partner |
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Surgical Intervention Trials Unit, University of Oxford, and MRC ConDuCT-II Hub for Trials Methodology Research |
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Surgical Intervention Trials Unit, University of Oxford |
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Health Experiences Research Group, University of Oxford |
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PPI Manager, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre |
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Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen |
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SPZ Associates |
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Health Experiences Institute, University of Oxford |
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Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen |
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Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, University of Liverpool and MRC North West Hub for Trials Methodology Research |
Collaborators and Advisors
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Jane Blazeby, MRC ConDuCT-II Hub for Trials Methodology Research, University of Bristol |
Louise Bowman, MRC CTSU Hub for Trials Methodology Research, Clinical Trial Service Unit, University of Oxford |
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Cushla Cooper, Surgical Intervention Trials Unit, University of Oxford |
Loretta Davies, Surgical Intervention Trials Unit, University of Oxford |
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Simon Denegri, National Institute for Health Research and INVOLVE |
Nigel Drury, Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Birmingham |
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David Evans, University of the West of England |
Alison Halliday, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford |
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Allison Hirst, IDEAL Collaboration |
Adwoa Parker, Department of Health Sciences, University of York |
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Emma Jones, University of Warwick |
Simon Knight, Centre for Evidence in Transplantation and Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences, University of Oxford |
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Laura Magill, Birmingham Surgical Trials Consortium |
Rebecca Harmston, Lay Contributor |
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Peter McCulloch, IDEAL Collaboration and University of Oxford |
Michael Osborne, Patient Contributor |
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David Simpson, Lay Contributor |
Rosamund Snow, Patient Advisor and University of Oxford |
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Tim Sprosen, Clinical Trial Service Unit, University of Oxford |
Lisa Hinton, Health Experiences Research Group, University of Oxford |
Contact information
For more information please contact the lead researcher Joanna Crocker (joanna.crocker@phc.ox.ac.uk), Senior Researcher, Interdisciplinary Research In Health Sciences, University of Oxford and NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre
The study was supported by the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and the MRC Network of Hubs for Trials Methodology Research, and was part of the Trial Forge initiative to improve trial efficiency.