In my first post on this blog, I set myself 3 PhD-related goals for 2017. One of those goals was to read more widely, and more frequently, and I decided that doing the #365papers challenge would be a good way to do that.

Here’s my first update, covering the month of January. Overall, I’ve found this a really good month for reading – I tended to skip a few days and then do an afternoon of reading to catch up. At first I felt a bit guilty about that; I wasn’t reading every day, but I’ve found this works for me. I think I get more out of the papers if I have a longer period of time to sit down and really unpick the work, I get into some sort of rhythm and then the time seems to be spent more productively.

My reading list started out with a few pretty general papers; I was looking for papers covering clinical trial recruitment in a broad way so that I could then move on to reading quirkier, small scale primary research. I’ve kept a log of everything that I’ve read so far, including brief notes and any points that I want to come back to – e.g. comments on style of writing or presentation methods that I like and want to bring into my own work, as well as any critique of the methods used.

January’s reading:

1. Current challenges in clinical trial patient recruitment and enrolment
2. The recruitment of patients into clinical trials
3. Seminars may increase recruitment to randomised controlled trials: lessons learned from WISDOM
4. Barriers to clinical trial recruitment in head and neck cancer
5. Re: Haddad et al. Barriers to clinical trial recruitment in head and neck cancer
6. Trials and tribulations: obstacles to clinical trial recruitment
7. What difference does patient and public involvement make and what are its pathways to impact? Qualitative study of patients and researchers from a cohort of randomised clinical trials
8. Using qualitative research methods to improve recruitment to randomised controlled trials: The Quartet study
9. Optimising recruitment and informed consent in randomised controlled trials: the development and implementation of the Quintet Recruitment Intervention (QRI)
10. A survey of facilitators and barriers to recruitment to the MAGNETIC trial
11. Using Facebook ads with traditional paper mailings to recruit adolescent girls for a clinical trial
12. An embedded randomised controlled trial of a Teaser Campaign to optimise recruitment in primary care
13. “You need to be a good listener”: Recruiters’ use of relational communication behaviors to enhance clinical trial and research study accrual
14. Improving recruitment in clinical trials: why eligible participants decline
15. Women’s reasons for participation in a clinical trial for menstrual pain: a qualitative study
16. Challenges in recruitment and retention of clinical trial subjects
17. Using Facebook to recruit college-age men for a human papillomavirus vaccine trial
18. Culturally competent strategies for recruitment and retention of African-American populations into clinical trials
19. Recruitment challenges in a diabetes prevention trial in a low- and middle-income setting
20. Recruiting to clinical trials on the telephone – a randomised controlled trial
21. Recruitment strategies and challenges in a large intervention trial: Systolic blood pressure intervention trial
22. Examination of participant flow in the CONSORT diagram can improve the understanding of the generalizability of study results
23. Research START: A multimethod study of barriers and accelerators of recruiting research participants
24. Projection of participant recruitment to primary care research: a qualitative study
25. Training recruiters to randomised trials to facilitate recruitment and informed consent by exploring patients’ treatment preferences
26. Using a business model approach and marketing techniques for recruitment to clinical trials
27. The experience of adolescents participating in a randomised clinical trial in the field of mental health: a qualitative study
28. What are the roles and valued attributes of a Trial Steering Committee? Ethnographic study of eight clinical trials facing challenges
29. The role of therapeutic optimism in recruitment to a clinical trial in a peripartum setting: balancing hope and uncertainty
30. ‘The trial is owned by the team, not by an individual’: a qualitative study exploring the role of teamwork in recruitment to randomised controlled trials in surgical oncology
31. Recruiting and consenting into a peripartum trial in an emergency setting: a qualitative study of the experiences and views of women and healthcare professionals

Are any of you attempting to read #365papers this year? How’re you finding it so far?