Strategies for recruitment in general practice settings: the iSOLVE fall prevention pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial

Table 3 Types of general practices, general practice characteristics, GP characteristics, and number of patients recruited

Practice size represented by number of GPs in each practice^a,b	Small practices		Medium-sized practices		Large practices		Total
	Solo GP	2–3 GPs	4–6 GPs	7–10 GPs	11–20 GPs	> 20 GPs	Total
General practice characteristics	*Number of practices*
Practices recruited	5	2	8	8	3	1	27
Person in facilitator role
GP	3	1	-	2	-	-	6
Practice manager	-	1	5	4	3	-	13
Nurse	2	-	2	2	-	1	7
Main receptionist	-	-	1	-	-	-	1
GP recruitment status
All/most GPs recruited	5	1	3	3	-	-	12
Half of practice recruited	-	-	5	3	1	-	9
Only one or a few GPs recruited	-	1	-	2	2	1	6
GP characteristics	*Number of GPs*
GPs recruited	5	3	25	29	11	2	75
Gender^b
Male	4	1	9	11	3	2	30
Female	1	2	16	18	8	-	45
Years in practice as a GP
< 5 years	-	-	3	1	-	-	4
5–10 years	1	-	2	3	1	-	7
> 10 years	4	3	20	25	10	2	64
Percentage patients ≥65 years
1–20%	1	2	5	6	5	1	20
21–40%	4	1	11	10	6	1	33
41–60%	-	-	6	10	-	-	16
61–80%	-	-	3	3	-	-	6
Patient recruitment number	*Number of patients*
Number of patient mailouts	383	602	1881	1746^c	494	135	5241
Number of patients responded Response rate (% mailed)	64 17%	83 14%	388 21%	401 23%	126 26%	29 21%	1091 *21%*
Target patient number to recruit (20 patients per practice)	100	40	160	160^c	60	20	540
Number of patients recruited Recruited rate (% mailed)	35 9%	39 6%	207 11%	189 11%	70 14%	20 15%	560 *11%*

^aAt baseline. Medium-sized practices tended to employ regular practice staff to assist with daily practice administration compared to small practices; large practices tended to employ even more practice staff and had multiple co-located services
^bWhen comparing with unpublished SNPHN (study area) data (2017), GP practices recruited were under-representative of solo and small GP practices (2–5 GPs) (55% iSOLVE, 75% SNPHN) and over-representative of medium-large GP practices (over 5 GPs) (44% iSOLVE, 24% SNPHN). The female:male ratio of GPs in our study (60:40) is similar to SNPHN data (58:42)
^cPatient recruitment was conducted with 26 GP practices as 1 practice (3 GPs) withdrew after randomisation and did not proceed with patient recruitment

ISSN: 1471-2288