Partnering with consumers and multidisciplinary team to understand challenges when conducting clinical trials in the burns ambulatory clinical environment: A qualitative research study

• Dedicated staff/patient time and space critical to clinic research success. • Customizing study design for local workflow improves consumer engagement. • Practical solutions to aid motivation for research at the point of care shared. • Take time to communicate likely benefits, improve staff/patient engagement. Patient and staff participation is a key factor influencing the feasibility, implementation and conduct of clinical trials within an acute burn multidisciplinary service environment. Thus, the aim of the project was to better understand the barriers to participation in outcome survey research conducted in the ambulatory clinic environment, from the perspective of patients and staff. Patient and clinician qualitative responses were collected through semi-structured interviews and summarized. A total of 11 patients and 8 staff participants completed the interviews. The lack of quarantined time available in clinic for research tasks, was the most consistently identified barrier. Competing demands on patients impeded their ability to complete survey packages during their daily clinic journey; and for researchers, the lack of dedicated time to customize project design and access study resources to efficiently recruit patients were the primary challenges identified. This study confirmed that while common challenges exist for burn researchers in the burn clinic, there were multiple, flexible and practical actions to mitigate barriers to completing clinical research in the ambulatory environment.