• Kristin L McBain, Eric T Payne, Rohit Sharma, Helena Frndova, Nicholas S Abend, Sarah M Sánchez, William B Gallentine, Karen M Cornett, Kendall B Nash, O Carter Snead, Christopher S Parshuram, Jamie S Hutchison, and Cecil D Hahn.
• 1Division of Neurology, Department of Pediatrics, The Hospital for Sick Children and University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. 2Department of Critical Care Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children and University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. 3Division of Pediatric Neurology, Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. 4Departments of Neurology and Pediatrics, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. 5Division of Neurology, Department of Pediatrics, Duke Children's Hospital and Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC. 6Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA.
• Pediatr Crit Care Me. 2016 Mar 1; 17 (3): 246-50.

ObjectivesTo analyze barriers to recruitment encountered during a prospective study in the PICU and evaluate strategies implemented to improve recruitment.DesignProspective observational study of continuous electroencephalogram monitoring in comatose children.SettingPICUs at four North American institutions.PatientsPatients with a Glasgow Coma Scale score of less than or equal to 8 for at least an hour.InterventionsFour strategies to increase recruitment were sequentially implemented.Measurements And Main ResultsThe baseline enrollment rate was 2.1 subjects/mo, which increased following the single-site introduction of real-time patient screening using an online dashboard (4.5 subjects/mo), deferred consenting (5.2 subjects/mo), and weekend screening (6.1 subjects/mo). However, the subsequent addition of three new study sites was the greatest accelerator of enrollment (21 subjects/mo), representing a 10-fold increase from baseline (p < 0.0001).ConclusionsIdentifying barriers to recruitment and implementing creative strategies to increase recruitment can successfully increase enrollment rates in the challenging ICU environment.

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