Recent studies cite that an estimated 43.5 million adults in the United States have provided unpaid care to an adult or a child in the prior 12 months. About 18.2% of the respondents surveyed reported being caregivers1. Challenges facing caregivers can be financial, emotional, and/or time-related. So imagine if you have a study where the protocol dictates that the caregiver must attend all study visits and ensure that the patient’s home assessments are completed. Examples include pediatric studies, studies that enroll patients who are at an advanced disease stage, and/or patients diagnosed with a disease that affects cognitive ability. We often hear “patient-centric” when considering study design, but have you factored in caregiver needs for your patient recruitment and retention strategies?
November is National Family Caregivers Month. Caregivers often play a large part in ensuring clinical trials are successful. It is imperative that the planning that goes into pre-trial activities and the execution of the study are ones that keep these stakeholders in mind.
UBC’s Patient & Physician Recruitment & Retention Services team can engage this population by offering services aimed at reducing caregiver burden to help ensure that patient study requirements are met. These services include:
• Pre-Trial strategies such as Qualitative Research via Focus groups or in-depth phone interviews to collect feedback from the caregiver community on planned study design
• Clinical Trial Nursing Services HCPs can perform an array of clinical trial activities such as study drug administration and training, blood and other specimen collections, clinical assessments, questionnaires, compliance reviews, data collection and documentation in the home or alternate setting to reduce visits to the clinical site
• Concierge Transportation Services Our study support specialists will work directly with sites to ensure that all study participant transportation needs are met. If the patient cannot travel on their own, we can book a car that accommodates multi-passenger and/or staff a clinical trial nurse to accompany
• Communication Materials such as educational videos, study websites, and newsletters aimed at providing information about the study and local resources to caregivers
Offering these type of services not only help keep randomized patients in a trial until completion, but they also drive enrollment as they address concerns a patient/caregiver may have when considering whether to participate.
Looking for these types of solutions for your trial? Contact us today!
1. https://elearningindustry.com/visual-learning-6-reasons-visuals-powerful…
2. http://www.appliedclinicaltrialsonline.com/surmounting-eclinical-data-vo…
