Low levels of recruitment into randomised controlled trials is a recurring difficulty and one that potentially threatens the validity of any RCT (Donovan et al, 2002a; 2002b). In cognate fields, research has been carried out with trial participants and other service users to understand the likely difficulties associated with recruitment from user perspectives and to modify recruitment materials and methods to maximise participation (Edwards et al, 1998; Featherstone and Donovan, 1999). However, the vast majority of this work has taken place with service users who would not experience communication challenges in participating in the research in the first place. By contrast, this paper concerns a study in which service users with aphasia and/or dysarthria worked alongside researchers, within a participatory action research framework, to design the recruitment materials that would be used in a large RCT (the ACTNoW trial)
