The Participant Voice: Insights into Improving Research Engagement and Retention Across a Multidisciplinary Research Center

Participant recruitment and retention remain significant research challenges with implications for scientific validity, fair participant selection, and social value. While recruitment strategies are well-studied, participant feedback, a form of community engagement encouraged in research ethics guidance (e.g., CIOMS, 2016), is less often used to improve participant experiences and retention. This pilot study surveyed 25 former participants (20 completers, 5 non-completers) from four prior trials at a human health research center towards developing an online participant feedback survey to use across the entire center. Phone interviews were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Respondents reported mostly positive experiences with the mobile lab and staff. Participation motivations included altruism, curiosity, compensation, and therapeutic potential. Non-completers cited inconvenience. Findings demonstrate the value of participant feedback and informed the development of an online, center-wide feedback tool.