Citation

Fernandez La Puente de Battre MD, Moritz Neumeier L, Ensslin C, Loidl M, Gräni C, Schmied C, Reich B, Niebauer J, Niederseer D. Scand. J. Med. Sci. Sports 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Cardiology, University Heart Center Zurich, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/sms.13682

PMID

32285530

Abstract

The Geographical Information Support for Healthy Mobility (GISMO)-study is a randomized controlled trial investigating the effects of active commuting on employees of the University Hospital in Salzburg over the period of one year. The aim of this report was to analyze the recruitment process of the targeted number of 70 participants. Further, problems that arose with regards to adherence to the study intervention, countermeasures that had to be taken to increase adherence as well as their results were analyzed. Recruiting participants, aged between 40-75 years (subsequently this age limit was changed to 18-75 years) who did not commute actively, i.e. did not walk or cycle, but used public transportation or cars proofed to be more difficult than expected, resulting in an extension of the planned recruitment schedule from 53 to 113 days. In approximately 6500 employees, phone calls (N=655) and e-mails (N=6492) were contact types with the highest response rate and were used to reach 96.0% of all initially interested subjects (N=300). 77 participants who met all inclusion and no exclusion criteria were invited for screening. Since 4 had to be classified as screening failures, 73 were randomized into the control or intervention group. Participants received incentives at a value of €526 to €797. Nonetheless, non-adherence still was the main reason participants dropped (8 of 11 dropouts, 72.7%). Slow recruitment and lack of adherence are major problems not only in exercise training studies and substantial effort is necessary to overcome these obstacles.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Physical activity study; dropout; incentives; recruitment