Barriers and facilitators to patient recruitment to a cluster randomized controlled trial in primary care: lessons for future trials

Table 1 GP Practice and GP characteristics in recruiting and non-recruiting GPs

	Group 1 GPs who recruited patients N = 40	Group 2 GPs who did not recruit patients N = 15*
GP age	54.3 ± 9.0	52.3 ± 11.5
% female	40	67
Number of asthma or COPD training events attended by GP in 12 months prior to study enrolment	0.40 ± 0.50	0.60 ± 0.51
% GP practicing in location of social disadvantage^†	53	60
Number of years practicing as a GP	22.4 ± 11.24	19.3 ± 11.7
Number of months between GP enrolment and first patient enrolled^‡	2.95 ± 3.96	-----
Total number of GPs working in practice^¶	4.65 ± 4.6	5.33 ± 2.73
Full time equivalent GPs working in practice^¶	3.01 ± 3.1	2.75 ± 1.0
% GPs working in practice training registrars^¶	23	33
% GPs working in practice training medical students^¶	49	60
Average number of patients seen by GP per week^¶	165.9 ± 185.9	120.0 ± 69.5
Average number of asthma patients seen by GP per week^¶	8.56 ± 7.3	12.40 ± 10.8

All variables mean ± SD except where indicated.
*Three GPs continued to study end but did not enroll patients, twelve dropped out or were lost to follow up (sample sizes were too small to make comparison between these sub-groups).
^†Social disadvantage at GP practice location: ‘Disadvantaged’ SEIFA Quintile ≤3, ‘Advantaged’ SEIFA Quintile: 4–5.
^‡Range 0–14.8; Median (IQR): 1.25 (0.25, 4.24).
^¶42 GPs (n = 37 who enrolled patients, n = 5 who did not enroll patients) provided data for these variables.

ISSN: 1471-2288