Recruitment strategies used to enrol healthy volunteers in the first pneumococcal human infection study in Africa: Lessons from Blantyre, Malawi.

Q1 Medicine

Wellcome Open Research Pub Date : 2025-02-26 eCollection Date: 2024-01-01 DOI:10.12688/wellcomeopenres.19271.2

Edna Nsomba, Anthony E Chirwa, Clara Ngoliwa, Vitumbiko Nkhoma, Pemphero Liwonde, Edward Mangani, Modesta Reuben, Lorensio Chimgoneko, Lumbani Makhaza, Evaristar Kudowa, Marc Y R Henrion, Neema Toto, Stephen B Gordon, Dingase Dula

{"title":"Recruitment strategies used to enrol healthy volunteers in the first pneumococcal human infection study in Africa: Lessons from Blantyre, Malawi.","authors":"Edna Nsomba, Anthony E Chirwa, Clara Ngoliwa, Vitumbiko Nkhoma, Pemphero Liwonde, Edward Mangani, Modesta Reuben, Lorensio Chimgoneko, Lumbani Makhaza, Evaristar Kudowa, Marc Y R Henrion, Neema Toto, Stephen B Gordon, Dingase Dula","doi":"10.12688/wellcomeopenres.19271.2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Background: Human Infection Studies (HIS) also known as Controlled Human Infection Models (CHIM) are a relatively new concept in African countries to clinicians, scientists, and communities alike. We have introduced HIS/CHIM studies to Malawi during the last four years by developing an experimental human pneumococcal carriage model. This CHIM was used to test the efficacy of a licensed 13-valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV13) against experimental nasal pneumococcal carriage. Traditional and digital recruitment strategies into this novel trial were explored.Objectives: To describe various methods of recruitment in this first CHIM study in Malawi.Methods: The clinical trial within the context of which these data were recorded was registered with the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry (REF: PACTR202008503507113) on 03 August 2020. The project was conducted at the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme (MLW) in Blantyre, Malawi between April 2021, and September 2022. Source populations were college students and community members within Blantyre. Recruitment strategies included sharing study information in written or visual form, community sensitization meetings, snowball contacts (word of mouth from previous volunteers), branded clothing and participating in radio and television programs.Results: 299 volunteers attended screening clinic, of whom 278 were recruited. Sixty-six recruited volunteers (23.7%) were college students and 212 (76.3%) were from the community. Snowball word-of-mouth contacting was the most successful recruitment strategy, with 201 (72.3%) participants recruited using this method. 195 (70.1%) were men of whom 149 (76.4%) joined the study through snowballing.Conclusion or recommendation: Using a variety of recruitment strategies led to successful recruitment in this novel controlled human infection study. Most participants were recruited through snowballing.","PeriodicalId":23677,"journal":{"name":"Wellcome Open Research","volume":"9 ","pages":"216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11971628/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Wellcome Open Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.19271.2","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Medicine","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background: Human Infection Studies (HIS) also known as Controlled Human Infection Models (CHIM) are a relatively new concept in African countries to clinicians, scientists, and communities alike. We have introduced HIS/CHIM studies to Malawi during the last four years by developing an experimental human pneumococcal carriage model. This CHIM was used to test the efficacy of a licensed 13-valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV13) against experimental nasal pneumococcal carriage. Traditional and digital recruitment strategies into this novel trial were explored.

Objectives: To describe various methods of recruitment in this first CHIM study in Malawi.

Methods: The clinical trial within the context of which these data were recorded was registered with the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry (REF: PACTR202008503507113) on 03 August 2020. The project was conducted at the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Programme (MLW) in Blantyre, Malawi between April 2021, and September 2022. Source populations were college students and community members within Blantyre. Recruitment strategies included sharing study information in written or visual form, community sensitization meetings, snowball contacts (word of mouth from previous volunteers), branded clothing and participating in radio and television programs.

Results: 299 volunteers attended screening clinic, of whom 278 were recruited. Sixty-six recruited volunteers (23.7%) were college students and 212 (76.3%) were from the community. Snowball word-of-mouth contacting was the most successful recruitment strategy, with 201 (72.3%) participants recruited using this method. 195 (70.1%) were men of whom 149 (76.4%) joined the study through snowballing.

Conclusion or recommendation: Using a variety of recruitment strategies led to successful recruitment in this novel controlled human infection study. Most participants were recruited through snowballing.

查看原文本刊更多论文

用于在非洲首次肺炎球菌人类感染研究中招募健康志愿者的招募策略：来自马拉维布兰太尔的经验教训。

背景：人类感染研究（HIS）也被称为控制人类感染模型（CHIM），在非洲国家对临床医生、科学家和社区都是一个相对较新的概念。在过去四年中，我们通过开发实验性人类肺炎球菌携带模型，将HIS/CHIM研究引入马拉维。该CHIM用于检测一种已获许可的13价肺炎球菌结合疫苗（PCV13）对实验性鼻腔肺炎球菌载体的有效性。在这一新颖的试验中探索了传统和数字招聘策略。目的：描述在马拉维进行的首次CHIM研究中的各种招募方法。方法：记录这些数据的临床试验于2020年8月3日在泛非临床试验登记处注册（REF: PACTR202008503507113）。该项目于2021年4月至2022年9月在马拉维布兰太尔的马拉维利物浦惠康计划（MLW）进行。源人群为布兰太尔的大学生和社区成员。招募策略包括以书面或视觉形式分享研究信息、社区宣传会议、滚雪球式接触（以前志愿者的口口相传）、品牌服装以及参加广播和电视节目。结果：299名志愿者参加了筛查诊所，其中278人被招募。66名大学生（23.7%），212名社区志愿者（76.3%）。滚雪球式的口头联系是最成功的招募策略，使用这种方法招募了201名（72.3%）参与者。195人（70.1%）是男性，其中149人（76.4%）是滚雪球式加入研究的。结论或建议：在这项新的人类感染控制研究中，使用多种招募策略导致了成功的招募。大多数参与者是通过滚雪球的方式招募的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Wellcome Open Research Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology-Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (all)

CiteScore

5.50

自引率

0.00%

发文量

426

审稿时长

1 weeks

期刊介绍： Wellcome Open Research publishes scholarly articles reporting any basic scientific, translational and clinical research that has been funded (or co-funded) by Wellcome. Each publication must have at least one author who has been, or still is, a recipient of a Wellcome grant. Articles must be original (not duplications). All research, including clinical trials, systematic reviews, software tools, method articles, and many others, is welcome and will be published irrespective of the perceived level of interest or novelty; confirmatory and negative results, as well as null studies are all suitable. See the full list of article types here. All articles are published using a fully transparent, author-driven model: the authors are solely responsible for the content of their article. Invited peer review takes place openly after publication, and the authors play a crucial role in ensuring that the article is peer-reviewed by independent experts in a timely manner. Articles that pass peer review will be indexed in PubMed and elsewhere. Wellcome Open Research is an Open Research platform: all articles are published open access; the publishing and peer-review processes are fully transparent; and authors are asked to include detailed descriptions of methods and to provide full and easy access to source data underlying the results to improve reproducibility.