The views of pharmacists who participated in a community pharmacy randomised controlled trial Michael J. Twigg a , Debi Bhattacharya a , Fiona Poland b , James A. Desborough a and David J. Wright a School of a Pharmacy and b Allied Health Professionals, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Keywords community pharmacy; medicines management; research method Correspondence Mr Michael Twigg, School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK. E-mail: m.twigg@uea.ac.uk Received September 27, 2011 Accepted June 17, 2012 doi: 10.1111/j.2042-7174.2012.00228.x Abstract Objective Examining case studies of research projects can prove useful to deter- mine what design aspects can be changed to improve the robustness and feasibility of future projects. Methods Pharmacists who took part as research partners in a feasibility study of an eczema support service that failed to achieve its recruitment objectives were asked to attend a focus group to determine their views about factors that may have affected pharmacist recruitment rate. Key findings Pharmacists expressed positive opinions about being involved in research in principle and remaining engaged for further projects. However, they identified problems in their relationship with the medical practices, their unfamili- arity with this particular study design and the challenges this brought. They also experienced frustration from delays to the research timetable holding back their contribution to the research. Conclusion In this case study, pharmacists described how and why they wanted a study process to be made as simple and easy as possible for the participants and themselves to engage in, so as to maintain their own and participants’ engagement in studies. Introduction Conducting community pharmacy studies poses a range of difficulties as pharmacy services research is relatively new, demonstrated by a lack of good-quality research data. [1] Researcher understanding of why pharmacists may find it dif- ficult to be involved in greater numbers and whether study design is part of the problem is important. One way of achiev- ing this is to examine case studies of pharmacist involvement in community pharmacy research projects to build more understanding of what factors may and may not facilitate suc- cessful study completion. [2] This short report examines one such case study in which a focus group was held to gather pharmacists’ views of difficulties encountered in their experi- ence of contributing to one such study. Method A focus group was held with pharmacists acting as research partners in an attempted but unsuccessful feasibility study. The pharmacist-led eczema management support service aimed to recruit 100 patients to examine whether a pharma- cist could have a beneficial effect on the management of eczema in children. An intervention was developed that con- sisted of a patient consultation with a pharmacist, intended to last 15–20 minutes with a follow-up telephone call. Partici- pating patients were randomised to receive the intervention or usual care. In addition to delivering the intervention, phar- macists were asked to recruit participants and to complete data-collection paperwork. The pharmacists attended a pre- study training evening on eczema and consultation skills (90 min) and study processes and documentation (60 min). They were paid for their contribution. This feasibility ran- domised controlled trial (RCT) failed to recruit the number of patient participants required to inform a larger study and therefore it was decided to ask all participating pharmacists (n = 7) to attend a focus group to encourage them to jointly discuss their reasons for engaging with the research. Examin- ing what they said could be used to inform the design for further projects in identifying specific study aspects that International Journal of Pharmacy Practice International Journal of Pharmacy Practice 2013, 21, pp. 128–130 Short Communication © 2012 The Authors. IJPP © 2012 Royal Pharmaceutical Society International Journal of Pharmacy Practice 2013, 21, pp. 128–130