Strengths and limitations
RECRUITMENT
The strengths of this study include its novelty and potential application and impact in practice. To our knowledge, this is one of the first trials exploring the impact of decentralised methods on participant enrolment and ongoing engagement in a dermatology trial.Some limitations of this study should be considered. We captured the experiences of SAFA participants who volunteered, without incentive, to take part in this qualitative sub-study and for this reason, there may be some inherent selection bias in the attitudes of those who took part. We did not interview eligible participants who chose not to enrol, who may have had different views from those who chose to participate in the qualitative interview. Non-recruited potential participants may have been able to provide insight into deterrents of participation to understand what may be adapted to make the trial more attractive to take part in. In addition, some interviews were carried out up to 8 months after a participant had completed the trial, which made some details of the trial hard to recall for some participants (e.g. details of the questionnaire). A larger sample size may have raised previously uncovered topics of interest. For this reason, future evaluations should be included, where possible, from the trial start with participants and non-participants. Participants should also be allowed the opportunity to share why they have declined the interview, which could inform recruitment strategies.