This morning when I logged on to the database and saw that I reached 250 on the week that I had predicted I needed to be at 250 to reach my total recruitment goal by the end of my 18 months of recruitment I was so happy. Its hard to describe this but in my role as a research nurse we see many projects (bigger and smaller) who struggle to achieve their goals in their original timelines. Often this is down to things out of their control, but as a emerging researcher I wonder if how the studies are written and how pragmatic they are also plays a role.

I am too early in my career to comment further as SYMPACT is the one and only research study I have designed. So maybe my success is first time luck. However, I did built my study to be pragmatic, easy to run, not to demanding for participants, anchored in my experience of what I knew to be possible in my local research team. My work with the Patient Research Ambassador group at Queen Alexandra Hospital, ensured that my question was refined to focus on the interests of the patients, while still answering an important research question. Throughout the first year my recruitment has never been less than 20 individuals below the monthly recruitment goal. Since my third site has been open we have slowly been closing that gap until today when we matched it! My hope now it that in the next 6 months we start to exceed the original goal!

While how I wrote it and set it up played a big role in achieving this goal. It would not be possible without the support of my PhD Supervisors, the Research department at Portsmouth Hospitals Trust, the Research teams in Queen Alexandra Hospital, University Hospitals of Southampton, and Solent NHS Trust.