ArticlesFocus groups with African American adolescents: Enhancing recruitment and retention in intervention studies*,**
Section snippets
Review of the literature
Knowledge regarding the effectiveness of skill development as a protective factor against health compromising behaviors in various contexts needs to be applied to the design of health promotion interventions for diverse populations of youth (NINR, 1993; Broome, 1998). Crucial to successful health promotion activities is the identification of intervention methods, activities, language and communication styles that relate to the expectations and values of adolescent groups and their models of
Method
This study sought to answer the following question: What specific incentives, conditions, strategies, and investigator characteristics do adolescents identify as necessary to recruit and retain adolescents in an intervention study? This study used focus group interviews as a precursor to a quasi-experimental study designed to determine the efficacy of a self-care intervention for adolescents with a chronic pain condition. The primary function of the focus groups was to collect qualitative data
Findings
Ten themes emerged within the two major categories of recruitment and retention.
Discussion
Adolescents are at high risk for drop-out or attrition in research studies (Crowe & Billingsley, 1993; Millstein et al., 1993). Few studies have obtained adolescents' perceptions in regards to increasing retention of teens in studies. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the unique perspectives of African American adolescents regarding recruitment and retention for intervention studies. Findings from this study reveal that the use of focus groups did generate data about what will and will
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the adolescents and their parents who participated and shared their time and ideas, as well as Gwen Lea, BSN, Joan Totka, MSN, and Evelyn Brown, MSN for assisting in recruitment of the adolescents who participated, and Beth Rodgers, PhD for assisting with the data analysis process.
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Supported by a minority supplement grant to Dr. Clark Jones from National Institute of Nursing Research (1 RO1 NR04080-01S1), Marion E. Broome (PI).
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Address reprint requests to Marion E. Broome, RN, PhD, FAAN, Professor and Associate Dean for Research, School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294. E-mail: [email protected]