Recruiting people with severe mental illness through community pharmacies: real-world experiences from a UK study

BACKGROUND: Proxy recruitment of patient participants through community pharmacies may be a valuable strategy to maximise participation. This paper focuses on the feasibility of such a recruitment strategy for research involving people who experience severe mental illness. METHODS: Fifty-three community pharmacies, including 50 ‘Research Ready’ pharmacies, were asked to recruit people with severe mental illness for participation in research. Pharmacists were asked to provide participant information to anyone presenting a prescription meeting specific criteria. RESULTS: Thirteen recruitment sites (25%) (from 4 distinct organisations) were approved to recruit patient participants. Eighty-five percent (n = 11) failed to recruit any potential participants. CONCLUSIONS: Proxy recruitment of people with severe mental illness through community pharmacies was challenging with challenges in both pharmacy- and participant-recruitment. Further investigation into supporting community pharmacists’ engagement with recruiting patients with SMI as research participants is required.