| Summary: | Background
Workplaces are key stakeholders in work and health but little is known about the methods used to recruit workplace representatives (WRs), including managers, occupational health advisers and colleagues, to externally funded healthcare research studies.
Aims
To detail the strategies used in recruiting WRs from three areas of the UK to a qualitative study concerning their experience of employees undergoing hip or knee replacement, to compare the strategies and inform recruitment methods for future studies.
Methods
Six strategies were used to recruit WRs from organizations of different sizes and sectors. Data on numbers approached and responses received were analysed descriptively.
Results
Twenty-five WRs were recruited. Recruitment had to be extended outside the main three study areas, and took several months. It proved more difficult to recruit from non-service sectors and small- and medium-sized enterprises. The most successful strategies were approaching organizations that had participated in previous research studies, or known professionally or personally to team members.
Conclusions
Recruiting a diverse sample of WRs to healthcare research requires considerable resources and persistence, and a range of strategies. Recruitment is easier where local relationships already exist; the importance of building and maintaining these relationships cannot be underestimated. However, the potential risks of bias and participant fatigue need to be acknowledged and managed. Further studies are needed to explore how WRs can be recruited to health research, and to identify the researcher effort and costs involved in achieving unbiased and representative samples.
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