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Recruiting Control Participants into Stroke Biomarker Studies

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Abstract

The number of scientists using –omics technologies to investigate biomarkers with the potential to gauge risk and aid in the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of stroke continues to rise, yet there are few resources to aid investigators in recruiting control participants. In this review, we describe two major strategies to match control participants to a stroke cohort-propensity score matching and one-to-one matching—including statistical approaches to gauge the balance between groups. We then explore the advantages and disadvantages of traditional recruitment methods including approaching spouses of enrolled stroke participants, direct recruitment from clinics, community outreach events, approaching retirement communities, and buying samples from a 3rd party vendor. Newer methods to identify controls by screening the electronic health record and using an online screening questionnaire are also described. Finally, we cover compensation for control participants and special considerations. The hope is that this review will serve as a roadmap whereby an investigator can successfully tailor their control recruitment strategy to the research question at hand and the local research environment. While this review is focused on blood-based biomarker studies, the principles will apply to investigators studying a broad range of biological materials.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge research coordinators Jamal Smith, Juby Mathews, and Margot Giannetti, who helped develop the screening materials and carried out many of the recruitment strategies described in the article.

Funding

MAE received research support from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (1U10NS086513) and from the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (KL2TR001432 and UL1TR001409).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Georgetown University, 4000 Reservoir Rd. NW, Building D Room 207, Washington, DC, USA

    Matthew A. Edwardson

  2. MedStar Health Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA

    Stephen J. Fernandez

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  1. Matthew A. Edwardson
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  2. Stephen J. Fernandez
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Contributions

MAE was responsible for the original idea for the article, drafted the manuscript, and performed data analysis related to the statistical tests section. SJF edited the manuscript and provided material to describe the program to identify matched controls from the electronic health record.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthew A. Edwardson.

Ethics declarations

The methods described in this article were developed during the recruitment of control participants into the biomarkers of stroke recovery study (Georgetown IRB #2015-0288). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study, and a waiver of informed consent was obtained to perform the screening techniques using the EHR and online questionnaire.

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The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Edwardson, M.A., Fernandez, S.J. Recruiting Control Participants into Stroke Biomarker Studies. Transl. Stroke Res. 11, 861–870 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12975-020-00780-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12975-020-00780-6

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