RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES IN A MULTICENTER RCT FOR DEMENTIA PREVENTION - RRAD STUDY

Exercise and Intensive Vascular Risk Reduction in Preventing Dementia (rrAD Study) is a NIH-funded multicenter randomized controlled trial (RCT) targeting older adults who are at high risk for developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). The original goal of rrAD is to enroll 640 participants in 24 months from January 2017 to January 2019. Development of effective recruitment strategies to meet the enrollment goal in the proposed timeline is essential for the trial success. We reported herein our recruitment experience of the rrAD Study. The major inclusion criteria are older adults, age 60-85, who have family history (FH) of dementia or subjective memory complaints, hypertension, and a sedentary lifestyle. Individuals with dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases, stroke, or unstable medical conditions are excluded (NCT02913664). Recruitment strategies in rrAD are diversified including mainly professional and non-professional referral, recruitment from the existing database at the sites, community outreach, advertisements through traditional media (local newspapers, TV and radio stations) and digital media (internet and social media), and study material (brochures, flyers, handouts, postcards, etc.). By the end of 2018, the study has performed phone screening in 2,636 individuals and randomized 321 participants in the study arms (12% yield). Media (traditional and digital), database, and referral together produced the largest number of interested individuals (71%). The major reasons for phone screening failure were blood pressure (BP) and lack of FH of dementia or subjective memory complaints. Media, database, and referral together also yielded the highest randomized subjects (83%) (Table 1). The major reasons for clinical screening failure were BP, clinical conditions, and willingness for randomization.