• François Lamontagne, Marie-Hélène Masse, Christopher Yarnell, Félix Camirand-Lemyre, Simon Lévesque, Marie-Pier Domingue, Katie O'Hearn, Irene Watpool, Jennifer Hoogenes, Sheila Sprague, Julie Ménard, Samuel Lemaire-Paquette, Laurent Hébert-Dufresne, Deborah Cook, Paul Hébert, Kathryn Rowan, Nicole Yada, Kusum Menon, Robert Fowler, Alison Fox-Robichaud, Denis Boutin, John Marshall, Michelle E Kho, and Canadian Clinical Research Network (CCRN), the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group (CCCTG) and Sepsis Canada.
• Université de Sherbrooke (Lamontagne, Camirand-Lemyre, Lévesque, Domingue); Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke (Lamontagne, Masse, Camirand-Lemyre, Lévesque, Domingue, Ménard, Lemaire-Paquette), Sherbrooke, Que.; Department of Critical Care Medicine and Research Institute (Yarnell), Scarborough Health Network, Toronto, Ont.; Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute (O'Hearn, Menon); Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (Watpool), Ottawa, Ont.; McMaster University School of Rehabilitation Science (Hoogenes, Kho); McMaster University (Sprague, Cook, Fox-Robichaud); Hamilton, Ont.; University of Vermont (Hébert-Dufresne), Burlington, Vt.; Bruyère Research Institute (Hébert), Ottawa, Ont.; Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (Rowan), London, UK; Unity Health Toronto (Yada), Toronto, Ont.; Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (Menon); University of Ottawa (Menon), Ottawa, Ont.; University of Toronto (Yada, Fowler, Marshall); Sunnybrook Hospital (Fowler), Toronto, Ont.; Patient with lived experience (Boutin), Sherbrooke, Que. francois.lamontagne@usherbrooke.ca.
• CMAJ. 2024 Jun 16; 196 (23): E779E788E779-E788.

BackgroundThe response of Canada's research community to the COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to examine the country's clinical health research ecosystem. We sought to describe patterns of enrolment across Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)-funded studies on COVID-19.MethodsWe identified COVID-19 studies funded by the CIHR and that enrolled participants from Canadian acute care hospitals between January 2020 and April 2023. We collected information on study-and site-level variables from study leads, site investigators, and public domain sources. We described and evaluated factors associated with cumulative enrolment.ResultsWe obtained information for 23 out of 26 (88%) eligible CIHR-funded studies (16 randomized controlled trials [RCTs] and 7 cohort studies). The 23 studies were managed by 12 Canadian and 3 international coordinating centres. Of 419 Canadian hospitals, 97 (23%) enrolled a total of 28 973 participants - 3876 in RCTs across 78 hospitals (median cumulative enrolment per hospital 30, interquartile range [IQR] 10-61), and 25 097 in cohort studies across 62 hospitals (median cumulative enrolment per hospital 158, IQR 6-348). Of 78 hospitals recruiting participants in RCTs, 13 (17%) enrolled 50% of all RCT participants, whereas 6 of 62 hospitals (9.7%) recruited 54% of participants in cohort studies.InterpretationA minority of Canadian hospitals enrolled the majority of participants in CIHR-funded studies on COVID-19. This analysis sheds light on the Canadian health research ecosystem and provides information for multiple key partners to consider ways to realize the full research potential of Canada's health systems.© 2024 CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors.

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