A novel approach to conducting clinical trials in the community setting: utilizing patient-driven platforms and social media to drive web-based patient recruitment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Participant recruitment for clinical research studies remains a significant challenge for researchers. Novel approaches to recruitment are necessary to ensure that populations are easier to reach. In the context of rare diseases, social media provides a unique opportunity for connecting with patient groups that have representatively lower diagnosis rates when compared with more common diseases or illness. We describe the implementation of designing a patient-centered approach to message design for the purposes of recruiting patients for clinical research studies for rare disease populations.

Methods

Using an iterative research approach, we analyzed our previous experience of using web-based direct-to-patient recruitment methods to compare these online strategies w

SUBMITTER: Applequist J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7069058 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature