Some participants experienced practical difficulties when combining holding a telephone and completing one of the assessment items. We found that in comparison with conducting the assessment in-person, telephone administration caused uncertainty for the researchers about whether participants were struggling to answer questions due to cognition or hearing impairment. One of the changes was for the researchers to conduct a cognitive assessment for eligibility during an initial telephone call, rather than during the subsequent home visit for consent and baseline data collection. In response to COVID-19, a number of changes were made to the trial’s screening and recruitment procedures, to minimise the amount of time the researchers would spend in the participants’ homes when recruitment began in May 2021. Here, we reflect on our experiences of administering the MoCA Blind/Telephone as part of the initial telephone eligibility check for participation in a randomised controlled trial with community-dwelling older people with frailty. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is widely used in research and is available in multiple formats for different groups and assessment settings.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced many research teams to adjust the way they conduct studies, including moving to remote delivery of some or all of their recruitment and data collection processes.