Recruiting adult participants to physical activity intervention studies using sport: a systematic review

Abstract

ObjectiveTo undertake a systematic review of the effectiveness of recruitment mechanisms for engaging and retaining target participants in sports interventions to promote physical activity behaviour change in adults.DesignA narrative systematic review of published studies providing details of the effectiveness of recruitment techniques used in interventions aimed at increasing physical activity via sport in adults.Data sourcesSearches were conducted using five electronic databases, clinical trial registers, grey literature and snowballing from reference lists. All papers published in the English language were considered. The search was completed in November 2015.Eligibility criteriaAll articles providing information on the recruitment of adults into interventions involving sport and reporting physical activity or participation outcomes were included.ResultsTwenty-three studies met the inclusion criteria. The quality of recruitment reporting across included studies was generally classified as poor, lacking detailed descriptions of recruitment processes and providing insufficient reporting of recruitment outcomes. There was a distinct recruitment bias for more affluent, white, middle-aged women. Active-only recruitment techniques appeared to achieve a participant sample with more representative demographic characteristics than passive approaches.ConclusionsDue to inadequate reporting and evaluation, the mechanisms for achieving effective recruitment and engagement in sport, particularly in hard-to-reach groups, are still unclear. Independent of recruitment mode, creating an intervention and context that reflect the interests and motivations of the target audience presents a promising area. There is an urgent need for more robust evaluation design and reporting of sports interventions.

Meal-exercise challenge and physical activity reduction impact on immunity and inflammation (MERIIT trial)

“…A population bias related to the recruitment strategy may also occur, as about a third of the included participants had values of maximal oxygen uptake within the athlete levels during the exercise challenge. The effectiveness of recruitment strategies for adult participants to physical activity interventions has been previously reported to be difficult, in order to reach unhealthy or inactive participants, and when representative samples are obtained, lower participation rate was found in previous studies [ 76 ]. The number of participants that completed protocol did not reach the target of 20 participants in each arm, this might limit the possibility to identify a difference in the main outcomes.…”

Enhancing the sample diversity of snowball samples: Recommendations from a research project on anti-dam movements in Southeast Asia

“…Researchers frequently cannot construct a sampling frame if a difficult-to-reach population is to be studied. Difficult-to-reach-populations are also referred to as ‘hard-to-reach-populations’ [ 28 ], ‘hidden populations’ [ 29 ] or ‘concealed populations’ [ 21 ] in the scholarly literature. Although not all scholars may agree that these terms are interchangeable, we deem them interchangeable for the purposes of this paper.…”

Inequities and inequalities in outdoor walking groups: a scoping review

“…While not mutually exclusive, each PROGRESS-Plus characteristic is relevant in itself. We found the social distribution of outdoor walking group engagement was comparable to that of total physical activity [18,91,92], with the exception of fewer younger adults and men. It is worth noting, however, that these programmes do seem successful at engaging women and older people, who ordinarily are underrepresented in physical activity programmes [93].…”

“…It was also difficult to ascertain the reach of walking groups by socioeconomic background due to disparate measures used. Our reach findings should be interpreted cautiously, not least due to the highly targeted nature of intervention studies, and the known recruitment biases in physical activity research more generally [92,111]. Furthermore, inconsistent reporting, especially for education and socioeconomic status, hindered assessments.…”