Patient recruitment and our study population

Sites lose studies on recruitment, not on equipment. A sponsor can find an eye clinic with an OCT almost anywhere; what decides whether a trial finishes on time is whether the right patients are already in the building. This page sets out where the New Zealand Eye Research Centre (NZERC) finds participants and how we keep them in a study.

Where our participants come from

• More than 55 years of specialty contact lens patients. NZERC works alongside its affiliated clinical practice, Rose Optometry in Hamilton, which has run a specialty contact lens service since the practice opened on 21 July 1969. The children in myopia control, the orthokeratology and scleral lens wearers, the keratoconus patients and the ocular surface patients a trial needs are existing patients, not people who have to be found from scratch.
• A research register. People who want to hear about studies register their interest in advance, by research area. When a study opens we contact the register first.
• Referrals from other clinicians. Optometrists, ophthalmologists and GPs across the Waikato refer patients for specialty contact lens and complex ocular surface care, and can refer a patient to a study.
• Regional reach. Hamilton sits in the Waikato, a region of roughly half a million people, about an hour and a half from Auckland. It is large enough to recruit from and small enough that there is little competition from other ophthalmic trial sites.

Our patient population

NZERC draws on an active patient database of 25,000 people. The following populations are seen and categorised in our records, so a sponsor's inclusion criteria can be matched against them directly:

• Children and teenagers with progressing myopia, including children already in optical or pharmacological myopia control.
• Orthokeratology wearers.
• Scleral and rigid gas permeable lens wearers.
• Keratoconus and irregular cornea patients, including post cross-linking.
• Adults with dry eye and meibomian gland dysfunction, including patients who have had device-based treatment.
• Soft contact lens wearers and spectacle wearers for comparison and control arms.
• Patients before and after cataract or refractive surgery, through surgical partners.

Retention

Retention in a paediatric myopia study is a two-year commitment from a family, and it is where small sites usually fail. What we do about it:

• Study visits are booked alongside routine care where the protocol allows, so families make fewer separate trips.
• One point of contact for each family for the life of the study, rather than whoever is on the desk.
• Honest screening. We would rather decline a family who cannot commit to the visit schedule than enrol them and lose them at month nine.
• Parents are told at consent what the whole schedule looks like, in writing.

What we will tell you at feasibility

We will give you a realistic number, not an optimistic one: how many patients in our database plausibly meet your inclusion criteria, how many we would expect to consent, and over what period. If we do not think we can fill your arm, we will say so at the first conversation rather than after you have paid for start-up.

What we will ask you for

Draft inclusion and exclusion criteria, the visit schedule, the total number of participants you need from this site, and the recruitment window. That is enough for a feasibility answer.

Next step

Email research@nzerc.com or use the sponsor enquiry form. See also our information for sponsors and CROs and our equipment and endpoints.