Optimal Online Screening for Patient Recruiting

An online screening questionnaire is a great way to recruit potential study participants.  If done correctly, the questionnaire or survey can ensure that most of the preliminary screening criteria are determined prior to the patient recruiting process. 

The online survey will ask about the age, gender and screen for the clear eliminators and also get some background in the patient's condition to help make sure that he or she fits in your study.

Take them all of the way through -- One element that we have learned after developing a significant number of these questionnaires, is that the survey should make the propective participant feel as though he or she is being considered even if you determine at the outset that there is not a fit.

For example, say you are doing a screening process where your study is looking for people with 10-20 pack-years of smoking (A pack-year is a person smoking one pack of cigarettes a day for a year).  Your trial is one where there is promising new treatment with people who have COPD.  Your screening process will likely determine the number of pack years, and then ask about exclusion (age, other diseases) and the nature of disease that the prospect has.

If your screen terminates the session with a message that the patient isn't qualified as soon as the number of pack-years is determined, you will likely create some unwanted behavior.  This is assuming that your participant is motivated to participate either because of compensation or a promising treatment. 
If you terminate them too early, they may try to re-enroll and adjust the answer to the eleminating question so that they qualify.  Or they may call or email a recruiter to understand why they aren't qualified.  Both of those can have negative impact, the first being unqualified people participating in the study, and the second increasing the recruting time and cost for your study.

Once complete, thank them and let them know they will be considered -- If you reject them in the session, many may want to call and argue the point.  It is best if you leave it open.  If you want to give those who do qualify additional feedback, that is fine, but don't let people know immediately that they do not.

5 Keys to creating good patient recruiting sites

One of the most challenging aspects of completing a clinical research study is recruiting appropriate participants.  Based on developing many patient recruting sites, we have developed our top-five list of items to do.

1. Easy to read.  It is critical that all medical jargon be very limited in the site.  While it is fine to include the terminology, make sure that it is defined clearly.

2. Describe your Team.  There is so much junk on the web today and much of it is misleading or designed to lure the unsuspecting.  Make sure that your team and institution are clearly described in your site.

3. Define your Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria Clearly.  If prospects attempt to enroll who are not qualified, it wastes recruting and assessment time.  Make sure that the criteria to participate are clearly outlined so the participant will realize the he or she isn't eligible so you don't have to.

4. Make the Participant Responsibilities Clear.  One of the most frustruating things is to screen a patient, complete the consent and then have them drop out because the requirements weren't well understood.  Make sure that they are clearly outlined in the site and it will save everyone headaches.

5. Clear Call to Action.  Make sure that it is obvious what you want the propsective participant to do.  You might consider having the 'I want to participate' link clearly defined either on the header or the primary menu of the site