ReviewHealthcare (Basel, Switzerland)2026
Challenges, Potential Solutions in Recruiting and Retaining Participants for Alcohol Use Disorder Research: A Literature Review.
Review in Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThis review aimed to identify the participant-, logistical-, and system-level factors that impede recruitment and retention in AUD research; to examine the strategies proposed to address them, including community-based and technology-assisted approaches; and to appraise the strength of the evidence supporting each strategy in order to define priorities for future work.
methodsA narrative review with thematic content analysis was conducted. PubMed/MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, and Embase were searched for records published between 1990 and 2026, supplemented by reference-list screening of included studies and relevant reviews. Records were eligible if they addressed recruitment, enrolment, retention, attrition, engagement, or follow-up in AUD or alcohol-related research. Given heterogeneity in design, population, and setting, findings were synthesized thematically rather than pooled statistically; a formal risk-of-bias assessment was not undertaken, although study design, sample characteristics, and author-reported limitations informed interpretation.
resultsSixteen challenges were identified across four domains: participant-level, access and logistics, study design, and system-level. Barriers were consistently better characterized than their remedies. The strategies with the most direct support were multimodal participant tracking, which sustained 81% retention at twelve months in an emergency department substance use cohort, and multidisciplinary or collaborative care structures, which produced the largest engagement differences observed.
conclusionsAttrition in AUD research is substantially a function of modifiable study design decisions rather than fixed participant characteristics. Priorities for future work include trials with research retention as a prespecified primary outcome, comparative evaluation of compensation structures, and standardized reporting of screening, enrolment, and attrition data.
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What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.