Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Mar 27;8(3):e019546.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019546.

Recruitment for exercise or physical activity interventions: a protocol for systematic review

Jeffrey C Hoover  1 , Aqeel M Alenazi  1   2 , Shaima Alothman  1 , Mohammed M Alshehri  1 , Jason Rucker  1 , Patricia Kluding  1
Affiliations

Recruitment for exercise or physical activity interventions: a protocol for systematic review

Jeffrey C Hoover et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Introduction: Recruiting participants into research trials is essential for the advancement of scientific knowledge that depends on clinical research studies. For the field of exercise and physical activity, there is an added difficulty in recruiting participants because participants must be willing to participate in an intervention that requires a significant commitment of both time and physical effort. Therefore, we have planned a systematic review to analyse how methodological factors, intervention characteristics and participant demographics impact recruitment rates in specific populations. This information will help researchers improve the design and recruitment approach in future studies.

Methods and analysis: A mixed methods systematic review will be performed on studies that implement physical activity interventions and present data on participant recruitment. We plan on searching the Pubmed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature and Online Resource for Recruitment research in Clinical Trials databases for potentially eligible articles from database inception through 10 February 2017. A standardised approach will be used to identify studies through a review of titles, abstracts and reference lists. The process for each eligible study is to determine their eligibility, extract data from eligible studies and rate each eligible study's methodological quality. Exploratory multivariate regression models will be used to determine the effects of methodological factors, intervention characteristics and participant demographics on the recruitment variables of interest.

Ethics and dissemination: Because all of the data used in this systematic review has been published, this review does not require ethical approval. The results of this review will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication as well as through conference presentations.

Prospero registration number: CRD42017057284.

Keywords: participant recruitment; physical activity and exercise; protocol; quantitative review; systematic review.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram for study selection based on the PRISMA guidelines. PRISMA, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Physical activity and health: a report of the surgeon general. GA, U.S: Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 1996.
    1. Allen JK. Coronary risk factor modification in women after coronary artery bypass surgery. Nurs Res 1996;45:260–5. 10.1097/00006199-199609000-00002 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Eckel RH, Jakicic JM, Ard JD, et al. . 2013 AHA/ACC guideline on lifestyle management to reduce cardiovascular risk: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association task force on practice guidelines. J Am Coll Cardiol 2014;63:2960–84. 10.1016/j.jacc.2013.11.003 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Blair SN. Physical activity, fitness and coronary heart disease physical activity, fitness and health: International proceedings and consensus statement. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1994:579–90.
    1. Magnusson C, Baron J, Persson I, et al. . Body size in different periods of life and breast cancer risk in post-menopausal women. Int J Cancer 1998;76:29–34. 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0215(19980330)76:1<29::AID-IJC6>3.0.CO;2-# - DOI - PubMed