The burden of questionnaires and never-ending documentation may be holding back successful trials and driving patients away, a tech firm has warned.
This was the main message of a session at the 11th Annual Clinical Trials in Oncology conference in Munich that found that the average clinical study coordinator works an average of 17 studies seeing patients for only three hours each.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Taking to the stage, Daniela Duffett, senior solutions consultant for trial tech firm Suvoda, detailed how in her research approximately 58% of clinical trial sites are keen to implement systems such as e-consent to allow patients to agree to different aspects of a trial remotely. However, this progress was liable to be held up by tech-centric sponsors who may not understand the burden that taking so many data points directly from patients may entail.
One of the major hurdles cited by Duffett in her work as a consultant for the Pennsylvania software firms is sponsors often create long highly detailed and repetitive questionnaires for trial subjects that would engender disengagement by way of expecting a potentially unwell user to answer questions, some of which are likely to have been answered by previous questions.
Detailing her work with an anonymous sponsor who wanted to run a multi-national multi-site trial, Duffet elaborated that the firm saw success after they were convinced to cut down on the rate and size of their questionnaires, seeing 100% of the required results delivered in time and an above average rate of compliance.
Duffett said: “This company started with the data they wanted, then listed off to us all the different questionnaires they needed and they ended up with a really long and complicated list of questionnaires, their argument being that these were the questionnaires that were necessary to get the data that they needed for their trial.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalData“We took a look at it and we advised them that they would have a few problems. Participants desire flexibility and simplicity in their use of technology. There were some questionnaires that were repetitive, and from a patient perspective they might not always enter the same data and if you end up with conflicting responses that’s going to be a nightmare for you.
“By having many long questionnaires it’s also going to impact patient compliance and reduce the amount of questions they actually answer. It’s also important to give patients the option to download the Suvoda eCOA app or be provisioned with a device to answer these questionnaires, giving them flexibility in their choice.”
The talk also detailed how patients need to be made to feel as though they have a full understanding of the trial and what it is looking for, citing the experiences of Alica Staley who earlier in the conference detailed how she had turned down a clinical trial examining her cancer diagnosis purely due to receiving whole folders of unconcise information.
