Barriers and Strategies in Recruitment for Bariatric Surgery Research

Bariatric surgery patients present unique challenges for research recruitment. These include the stigma of obesity, sensitive psychosocial issues that may accompany obesity, and the many requirements of insurers before surgery is approved. Yet, little guidance is found in the literature on ways to improve recruitment success for bariatric surgery patients specifically. The purpose of this article is to describe the strategies we developed to overcome anticipated and unanticipated barriers to recruiting bariatric surgery patients for a prospective pilot study. First, we review the literature on barriers to recruitment and strategies to improve recruitment for clinical research projects in general. Pertinent barriers include fear of emotional distress, practical and logistical concerns for data collection, issues related to research regulations, and clinician attitudes regarding the study. Second, we demonstrate the ways in which successful strategies from the literature were incorporated into our recruitme...