Sampling, Recruitment, and Retention in a Bereavement Intervention Study: Experiences from the Living after Loss Project

Abstract

This article reports on the sampling and recruitment challenges, as well as the strategies used to address them in the Living After Loss (LAL) project, a bereavement intervention study conducted in Salt Lake City and San Francisco comparing two 14-week group conditions with follow-up. We encountered three major challenges: 1) difficulty determining eligibility for some potential participants who were contacted, 2) locating and recruiting nonwhites, and 3) unavailable phone numbers for approximately one-third of those we attempted to contact. Despite these challenges, we achieved a 42% response rate with a sample size of 328 participants comprising 15% non-white. Eighty-five percent of the participants completed all of the follow-up data points. Leading factors in participants' decisions to join and remain in the study were 1) opportunities to obtain help and support, 2) to potentially help other bereaved individuals, 3) to contribute to research, and 4) their on-going interactions with a professional, empathetic, and culturally sensitive project staff. Effectively focusing recruitment efforts and carefully and systematically training research staff were among the most effective strategies we employed and therefore suggest for those planning similar investigations.