Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. It is important to establish
effective treatments and prevention efforts. Progression toward these goals has been stagnant
because it difficult to recruit representative samples of suicidal individuals in studies. By
describing the results of recruitment efforts in a clinical trial examining the role of ovarian
hormones in female suicidality, this study aimed to clarify the barriers to recruitment of women
with suicidality in research. We hypothesized that barriers to recruitment would be low
socioeconomic status, negative attitudes toward research, more severe clinical presentation, and
minority race. We conducted t-tests and chi square analyses to compare differences in our
expected barriers between eligible women who did enroll and eligible women who did not enroll.
Only racial minority status was associated with lower enrollment among eligible women. Future
research should aim to refine recruitment strategies so that samples accurately reflect an
increasingly diverse US population.