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Accrual, Retention, and Adherence

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Abstract

This chapter offers practical advice on how to monitor and optimize enrollment rates, retention rates, and adherence levels in a study. The advice is partly based on a framework of thinking about dynamics of research participation. When problems arise with levels of research participation, two dynamics are worth considering to gain insight into causes of the problems and to start designing responses. The first is that potential and enrolled research participants continuously entertain fundamental concerns about personal safety, personal gain, social acceptability, and personal competing interests. The second is that these concerns are continuously influenced by changing internal and external factors, the latter of which includes practical circumstances and opinions of various stakeholders or opponents of participation with the research study.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

Voltaire

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Correspondence to Jan Van den Broeck M.D., Ph.D. .

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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Van den Broeck, J., Tylleskär, T. (2013). Accrual, Retention, and Adherence. In: Van den Broeck, J., Brestoff, J. (eds) Epidemiology: Principles and Practical Guidelines. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5989-3_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5989-3_17

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5988-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5989-3

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