Preface
Participating in clinical research can be a daunting step.
The presentation of information related to a patients involvement is fundamental to the success or otherwise of a patients recruitment and continued involvement.
The following materials describe methods that help assure initial and continuous engagement.
Introduction
The trial info page is devoted to patients who want to participate in a trial and are searching for studies based on their condition.
For these users, the most important items are to nd out whether they are eligible for the trial and whether there are investigative sites available nearby.
Therefore, the focus of the front page of the trial info portal is as follows:
1. We have highlighted the medical condition so that patients can be sure the trial is relevant for them.
1. We have highlighted the medical condition so that patients can be sure the trial is relevant for them.
2. We’ve also highlighted the trial title (patient friendly version), study type, phase, status, period and sponsor info as well as a short description of the study.
We can have help hints for any medical terminology patients might not be aware of.
3. For example, clicking on the medication name will show hint with the description and clicking on the type of the study - will give patient information regarding interventional studies.
Then we have a couple of blocks:
4. To help patients find site locations
4. To help patients find site locations
5. Check their eligibility
Each tab in the portal will have:
6. Header with study title
7. Footer navigation between sections
7. Footer navigation between sections
Locations
This page is simple:
1. Big search area with autosuggestion while typing (if patients arrived at trial info page from search page, where they have entered their location and condition, location will be automatically filled from that page).
2. Number of study sites in the area is displayed.
3. Scrollable list of locations is included on the right with brief info for each site and distance from the specifed location.
If the user hasn’t specified his location, we will display a global map and the total number of sites participating in the study.
4. Clicking the pin on the map or the site in the list on the right, will expand site details (5)
Eligibility
For checking eligibility our suggestion is an online screening survey.
1. We can ask patient questions related to the inclusion/exclusion criteria.
2. Depending on answers we can show progress bar lled on top, with title “you are prequalified to participate in a trial”.
Of course patients typically can’t answer all of the eligibility questions themselves and these will need to be confirmed during their screening visit at the site. The ones that can be feasibly asked directly from the patient, like age, gender, existing diagnosis and if the user doesn’t meet these criteria the progress bar will become red and show the text that “You are not eligible to participate in this study”.
3. For some of the questions, the user is also presented to answer ‘Not sure’ and these answers do not disqualify the user, but will trigger a on-site confirmation of these questions.
4. Eligibility page has sidebar navigation for quick access of each section of the page, manually scrolling the page will highlight the active section.
Timeline
1. The left hand side of the screen has a table, which is divided into weeks or treatment cycles, study arm information and the schedule of events in each cycle or week.
The bar on the right has the full list of interventions and events and the user can scroll it manually and read one by one. Each element in the timeline table can also be clicked (2) and the list on right will be scrolled to the relevant section (3).
Patient Considerations
1. This page includes patient friendly text about the study outcome measures. For this study, the text has been taken from the Informed Consent materials provided. After outcome measures we will have info regarding risks, benefits, study logistics and post-study plans.
2. This page also has sidebar navigation between sections and subsections.
Responsive design
Design is fully responsive, taking full screen, with fixed position of footer header elements, and flexible columns.
On mobile devices though, global navigation . between main sections will be hidden by default. Patient can access the navigation by tapping the menu button.
This responsiveness can be achieved just with the use of CSS, no additional HTML will be needed for mobile devices, which makes maintaining the site simple. However, the structure of some pages will need to be changed. There is no space to fit the right sidebar, so it will be automatically hidden when using mobile devices.
On the Locations page the sidebar is moved from the right side to the bottom of the page, displaying only a single site at a time, so patients will need to tap the pins). on the map to browse the search results.
Site location info can be expanded to show more data
Conclusion
The presentation of information on the study remains complex – however, through the delivery of such information in a simpli ed form, it is possible to create an engaging experience for potential study participants.
This can lead later to ongoing enrollment and study engagement using similar visual representation and information delivery.
concept was done for the contest https://ctdesign.devpost.com with the help of proper feedback from my colleagues at http://www.eclinicalhealth.com
