Physician recruitment for a community-based smoking cessation intervention

Our goal was to describe a strategy to recruit a population-based sample of physicians into a trial to test an approach to disseminate physician-delivered smoking cessation interventions. The 3-phase population-based recruitment trial included: (1) a print-based promotional appeal, (2) in-person presentations with by the principal investigator (PI), and (3) follow-up calls by the PI and paid physician recruiters. Participation requirements were kept minimal to facilitate recruitment. All primary care physicians statewide were targeted; 3 counties were chosen as intervention areas and 2 counties as control areas. A subsample of physicians was targeted in the larger control areas through a matching process. We measured physician recruitment rate. Eighty-one percent (n=259) of all eligible physicians were successfully recruited into our study. The full multistep process was important in getting participation agreement. By using an intensive recruitment strategy and minimizing research demands, it is possible to recruit community-based primary care physicians for research projects that will help them enhance the preventive services they provide to their patients.