Enrollment Challenges in Critical Care Nursing Research

BACKGROUND: Enrollment challenges for critical care research are common. Contributing factors include short enrollment windows, the crisis nature of critical illness, lack of research staff, unavailable legal proxy, family dynamics, and language barriers. OBJECTIVE: To describe enrollment statistics for an ongoing critical care nursing trial, barriers to recruitment, and strategies to enhance enrollment. METHODS: Two years' worth of recruitment and enrollment data from an oral care intervention trial in critically ill adults receiving mechanical ventilation at 1 hospital were analyzed. Recruitment logs include number of patients screened, eligible, enrolled, and declined and patients' sex, race, and ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS: Unavailability of a legal proxy within a short enrollment window was the major challenge to enrollment. Various factors influenced consent decisions. Clinical study design requires more conservative estimates.