Comparing emergency department versus high school-based recruitment for a hypertension research study with adult–youth dyads

Abstract

Dyads can be challenging to recruit for research studies, but detailed reporting on strategies employed to recruit adult–adolescent dyads is rare. We describe experiences recruiting adult–youth dyads for a hypertension education intervention comparing recruitment in an emergency department (ED) setting with a school-based community setting. We found more success in recruiting dyads through a school-based model that started with adolescent youth (19 dyads in 7 weeks with < 1 hour recruitment) compared to an ED-based model that started with adults (2 dyads in 17 weeks with 350 hours of recruitment). These findings can benefit future adult–youth dyad recruitment for research studies.

Keywords

• Hypertension
• adolescents
• recruitment
• emergency department
• research methods
• dyadic research
• community engagement