How to recruit patients for a clinical trial online
Most trials fall behind their enrolment plan. Publish a landing page, pre-screen applicants against your criteria and hand sites a qualified list.
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- Write the pre-screener from the eligibility criteria that exclude the most people.
- Publish one landing page per study and language, approved by the ethics committee.
- Track where each applicant comes from and spend on the channels that enrol.
- Contact qualified applicants within days, while their interest holds.
Online recruitment brings people to a study page, asks them a few pre-screening questions and sends the ones who qualify to a site. It works when the page speaks to patients, the pre-screener filters out ineligible people before a coordinator calls them, and you know which channel sends people who enrol.
How to recruit online in 6 steps
- Write the pre-screener. Turn the inclusion and exclusion criteria that remove the most people into short questions: age, diagnosis, current treatment, distance to a site.
- Build the landing page. Explain the study in plain words: what it tests, the visits, the compensation, who can join. Submit the page and the pre-screener to the ethics committee.
- Collect consent for pre-screening data. Under the GDPR, tell applicants what you do with their answers and ask for consent before the first question.
- Launch on several channels. Patient associations, social ads, newsletters, referring physicians. Tag each link so you know the source.
- Qualify and hand off. Let the rules mark each applicant as qualified or excluded, and pass qualified ones to the nearest site.
- Follow the funnel. Count applicants, qualified, contacted and enrolled by channel every week, and move budget to the channels that enrol.
Mistakes to avoid
- A long pre-screener. Every extra question loses applicants. Keep the criteria that exclude the most.
- Slow follow-up. A qualified applicant who waits two weeks for a call has moved on.
- Counting clicks. Track each channel through to enrolment, since a click tells you nothing about who joins.
Recruitment in Datacapt
In Datacapt, a coordinator publishes a study landing page in your branding and languages in an afternoon, with a pre-screener that uses skip logic. Datacapt qualifies or disqualifies each applicant against your rules the moment the form is submitted, records the source they came from, and moves them through a live funnel: contacted, qualified, enrolled, excluded. A qualified applicant books a visit in Calendar and Scheduling, in the same record.
Keep reading
Does a recruitment page need ethics approval?
Yes, in most countries. Ethics committees review recruitment materials, including web pages, ads and pre-screening questions.
What data can you collect before study consent?
Collect what the pre-screening needs, with the applicant's consent to that step. Full study data waits for the informed consent.
Which channel works best?
It depends on the condition. Patient associations and physician referrals often enrol better than broad social ads. Track each source to find out for your study.