How to achieve patient centricity in clinical trial listings

Facilitating medical research relies on patient participation, yet research protocols often overlook the patient perspective.  Improving patient centricity in clinical trials demands prioritizing the patient experience.

To better understand what patients want and need at the beginning of their clinical trial journey, Antidote conducted a patient survey. We asked 145 patients with various medical conditions including those who had prior experience in clinical trials or expressed interest in participating. Our objective was to ascertain which platforms patients use to search for trials and the specific information they require to make informed decisions regarding participation. These findings hold important implications for how clinical operations teams should share information about trial listings. Here’s what we found out:

How patients learn about clinical trials

Many patients learn about trials from online ads or through their own searches. Out of the patients we surveyed, 41% reported learning about clinical trials through online search listings. This is congruent with data from a much larger study conducted by CISCRP, where 67% of those surveyed said that they first learned about clinical trial listings online.

While social media serves as the primary channel that respondents reported finding trial information on the internet, patients also regularly visit clinical trial search tools and websites, with Clinicaltrials.gov receiving 215 million views per month. Additionally, our own clinical trial search tool, Match™, is live on more than 300 partner websites, which include advocacy organizations, patient communities, and health portals.

What patients want from clinical trial listings

While it’s clear that patients are searching for trials online, they also expressed frustration when seeking details that many trial listings don’t provide. We asked, “What information would be most useful to you as you were researching various trial options?” Nearly 30% of patients reported that they would need more details on the procedures or drugs being tested, while 25% said that information on time commitment would be most useful to them as they considered a trial. Some other notable details that interested patients were post-trial drug access (15%) and information on past trials of the study drug (14%). 

In a similar question in the aforementioned CISCRP survey, respondents were prompted to list the information that could be featured in clinical trial marketing that would grow their trust in the sponsor company. The most popular items people wanted to know about were the potential risks and benefits, the research that has already been done on the study drug, and knowing if the company is actively pursuing patient-centric research design.

How to create patient-centric clinical trial digital advertising

Based on the information we’ve gathered from our survey along with additional information, it is clear that providing patients with the information they want can positively impact patient centricity. Here are a few ways that study sponsors can implement this strategy within their own clinical trial advertisements:

Connect with clinical trial recruitment agencies. 

Clinical trial recruitment agencies can be a helpful resource for research sponsors who are looking to connect with patients more effectively. By providing the recruitment agency with information about the trial, the company can then craft messaging, imagery, and targeting that work together to catch the attention of patients and provide them with the information they need to know.

Work with patient advocacy groups.

Patient advocacy groups communicate with patients on an everyday basis, and often have valuable insights for how their communities are likely to respond to various messaging. Working with an organization like this, or collaborating with a recruitment agency that has these kind of partner relationships, can provide valuable context towards the language a target patient population may prefer.

Often, a major hurdle of clinical trial enrollment is getting patients to notice your study listing and feel like they have enough information to take the first step toward screening. If you’d like to learn more about how Antidote can support patient centricity in clinical trial advertising, get in touch today to learn more.