Trial Participant Retention: Maintaining Adherence, Minimizing Dropout

Patient participation is essential to clinical trial success. It is also one of the most challenging parts of running a successful trial.

The problem starts at enrollment: Studies of clinical trial recruitment and retention indicate that only 20 to 30 percent of clinical trials meet enrollment goals, writes David B. Fogel. Then many clinical trial studies struggle to keep the patients that are enrolled engaged.

To retain patients, clinical trial teams need to understand why patients drop out. They must also identify the most likely dropout triggers in each study and choose tools that address those issues.