Social Media: A New Recruitment Strategy for Clinical Trials

Recruiting patients for clinical trials has been a controversial practice from the start, whether establishing the target audience or deciding how to present the information in an honest yet appealing way. The main issue clinical trials face when taking off is the lack of volunteers: according to a recent study conducted by Cutting Edge Information, 80% of the trials are delayed due to insufficient enrollment. IRBs (Institutional Review Boards), which are responsible for reviewing the entire case before allowing a trial to go forth, are also in charge of reviewing active recruitment advertisements to make sure they are honest and not excessively coercive. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has also published detailed guidelines about advertisements to recruit volunteers prohibiting active encouragement.

The rise of social media over the past few years has led to a whole new venue for pharmaceutical and academic institutions to recruit patients for clinical studies. Suddenly, advertisements are popping up on the side of your Facebook page offering you $1,000 to participate in an iron deficiency drug trial after you googled “anemia symptoms and treatment” last week when you were feeling light-headed. The online presence of clinical trials has immensely increased their exposure over the past few years: websites such as ClinicalResearch.com and clinicaltrials.gov provide information to hundreds of thousands of prospective volunteers, and online forums allow patients to communicate with each other.

Although this new form of mass communication has broadened and neutralized the demographic that has access to clinical trials, it is concerning to think that more vulnerable subjects, such as teenagers or patients who are afflicted with a disease that has no cure, could be more eaily persuaded to put themselves at risk since their web pages are now flooded with enticing advertisements for clinical trials. We just have to wait for the FDA and IRBs to issue specific regulations about advertising online and using social media as a means of communication.

Sources:

http://www.ihealthbeat.org/features/2012/social-media-offers-new-recruitment-strategy-for-clinical-trials.aspx

http://www.ask-cato.com/2011/03/social-media-in-clinical-trials-increasing-patient-recruitment/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/03/10/pharma-s-facebook.html

http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/search/browse?brwse=diet_alpha_all

http://www.epa.gov/oppfead1/guidance/human-test.htm

http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/human-subjects-and-diagnostic-genetic-testing-720