PARTNER Newsletter

Issue 8, April 2011 

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Enrolment strategies
Experience during the recruitment of the first 154 partnerships into PARTNER has taught us lessons about how to maximise recruitment. There are several centres where recruitment has been good, even within smaller centres, which indicates that the study is recruitable.  It is clear, though, that some centres are struggling to find efficient means to identify eligible people willing to take part. In order to maximise recruitment and share experience based on feedback from investigator  meetings and teleconferences, a new recruitment strategy has been developed.

The strategy is a two-stage process that involves:
(1) Clinicians asking patients on ART whether they have a serodifferent partner and if so, whether they would be willing to discuss participation in the Partner study with a research  staff.

(2) Thereafter the research staff contacts these persons to ascertain whether they are eligible for the Partner study and willing to take part.  

It should be possible to screen large numbers of patients in the first stage because the question asked by the clinician is simply about having a serodifferent partner (not whether condoms are used or not).

It is possible that patients who are not always using condoms may be more willing to disclose this to a research staff than to their doctor.
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We have developed the following two documents to support this process at your site if you wish to use:

1. A short question (to be included with the patient's file/notes when they are seen in the clinic) to remind the clinician to ask patients on ART whether they have a seronegative partner.

2. A log for the clinician to list patients willing to consider the study. The log can be used by the research staff to contact patients and introduce the Partner study details.
Estimating enrolment
To get more information on each clinic we would like to know the total number of HIV positive patients that are seen at your site. Please mail this number to Tina by 15th April.

Minutes online 
CROI investigator Meeting February Minutes, Presentations

National Coordinator TC Minutes are available here.

The next National Coordinator TC will be 15th April 2011 from 14:30-15:00 CET (13:30-14:00 GMT)

 On-line CRF
Please make sure that you are pairing the right patient identification numbers when you are filling in the case report forms online. Thank you!
 
Investigator TC

We would like to invite all participating sites to  TC on the following dates:
Friday 15th April from
15-16  CET
Wednesday 11th May from 14-15 CET
At the TC's we would like to discuss the new recruitment strategy and to get update from sites that are recruiting well.
The partner study has been funded by the NIHR (National Institute for Health Research in the UK) and is sponsored by UCL (University College London). It is coordinated cooperatively between Copenhagen HIV Programme (CHIP), UCL and Royal Free NHS Trust.