Fixing five common problems with clinical trial patient recruitment and recruiting participants for medical research can be a difficult process. Finding the right patients to engage in a study is a major challenge. There are ways to overcome these challenges and maintain a study timeline.
Problem: Patients don’t pass the pre-screener.
It is important to determine which qualifications make patients ineligible for outreach. There are many ways to target audiences. You can adjust demographics such as age, location, and gender. But there are also other ways. Facebook offers many options for fine-tuning an ad target, which can be very useful.
Problem: It is expensive to reach qualified patients.
It can be beneficial to use a larger net when dealing with high acquisition costs. If sites are in areas with low population, it might be best to increase geographic targeting as people from rural areas tend to travel farther. Working with nonprofits and community groups is another great way to reach a highly targeted audience that can generate a fantastic ROI.
Problem: Ad Engagement is low.
It may be useful to take the same steps as those recommended to reduce costs if ads aren’t bringing many participants. It may also be beneficial to use other platforms, such as Google AdWords. This platform allows you to advertise to users who are searching for specific keywords that relate to the trial. It can also be useful in evaluating the design of ads and testing variations of images and text that are more eye-catching.
Problem: Patients fill out your prescreener, but they don’t respond to follow-up.
Many reasons can be cited for why patients are not responding after completing a pre-screener. The majority of these have to do with contact preferences. For instance, younger patients may not respond well to an unexpected call but would be more likely to react positively to texts or emails. You can give patients the option to add a call center to their contacts or schedule a phone validation time so that they are prepared for the next step.
Problem: The patient passes the screening but does not enroll in the trial.
It is a major decision to enroll in a clinical study. Patients may hesitate to do so, especially if the design of the trial causes undue stress to participants. It can be useful to provide more information on the study during outreach. This includes highlighting the advantages of taking part in research, as well as being transparent about travel reimbursements and other details.
