Behavioral Science & "Social Listening": The DNA Of Clinical Trial Recruitment

By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA

As demand increases for treatments, patients, and investigators to understand and meet health needs, it is becoming more important to find new and creative ways to recruit and retain the right patients for a trial’s target indication.

Clinical Leader turned to Ramita Tandon, SVP and General Manager, inVentiv Clinical Trial Recruitment Solutions (iCTRS), to learn more about the roles behavioral science, social media outreach, and “social listening analysis” can play in clinical trial recruitment in an increasingly regulated industry. 

Anna Rose Welch: What are some changes you have observed in the industry that are making patient recruitment a more difficult task?

Ramita Tandon: The industry itself has been challenged by increasing regulatory pressures, which are creating a greater demand for patients. At the same time, the number of available investigators has grown very little. The clinical trial enrollment process has notoriously been a significant rate limiter in bringing new treatments to market, and the industry is now faced with an extremely competitive environment for both clinical trial investigators and the patients needed to complete a trial. This competition is fueling an increase in costs and a need to do things faster and more efficiently. Sponsors can no longer afford to make critical planning decisions based on unreliable estimations or assume investigators will produce the patients needed to complete a study. The industry needs to be more willing to adopt tools, technologies, and innovations to speed trials quickly, and on a global scale.

Welch: In the face of these challenges, what best practices have emerged for recruiting and retaining clinical trial participants?

Ramita Tandon, SVP & General Manager, inVentiv Clinical Trial Recruitment Solutions

Tandon: Our approach places the recruitment strategy at the center of study planning, or as we refer to it, the “trial DNA”. During study planning, it is critical to have a thorough understanding of your patients before a protocol is finalized. We take a behavioral science-based approach to uncover deep patient insights on the study population to help understand enrollment risk and determine which factors in the proposed study protocol can be adjusted to minimize those risks. Using patient insights during study planning is the first step in ensuring clinical trial enrollment success.

Our best practices have shown that a thorough understanding of the patient, gleaned through behavioral science, combined with findings from a “social listening analysis”, drive better engagement. These insights help us to understand why people do what they do and uncover how to best communicate with patients to change behavior, as well as identify the communication channels through which patients will be most receptive to the message.

The ideal mix of communication channels will vary based on the targeted study population, but it will generally include a comprehensive, centralized campaign comprised of multiple tactics, including global pharmacy outreach, tapping the expertise of on-site clinical trial educators, as well as employing digital, mobile, and social technologies. These integrated tools, tactics, and applied insights are powerful in both recruiting and retaining the right clinical trial participants.

Welch: How does social media fit into your recruitment strategy, and have you found these channels valuable?

Tandon: The use of digital, mobile, and social media technologies is a core component of our trial recruitment strategies. The most successful digital, mobile, and social recruitment strategies create a “surround sound” system of outreach to patients, caregivers, and physicians that extends from the study start up, through the duration of the study, and on to post-trial follow up.

As with any communications campaign, the success of a social media campaign hinges on how thoroughly the strategy is researched, planned, and implemented. We have found it invaluable to conduct a “social listening analysis” to help inform the social strategy. We monitor existing online discussions on the disease state to understand the issues of interest and concerns of patients and caregivers. Beyond identifying what the target audience is talking about, we study the specific words and phrases they use in describing their symptoms and experiences.

This social listening analysis helps us understand what is currently happening among the target patient population, and conducting the aforementioned behavioral research guides our strategy as to how to adjust the conversation and communications strategy to encourage an alteration in behavior that will result in engagement and participation. The two sources of information combined are powerful, and we have seen it work. For instance, in one recent trial, we implemented a social media strategy which applied our patient insight findings to develop patient-focused communications on Facebook – which increased the number of study website visits by 64 percent!

Welch: What role can behavioral research and social listening play in targeting patients with rare indications?

Tandon: In these cases, behavioral research tells us about the patient journey and how it may be different from that of a more prevalent disease. We are able to understand what these patients may be undergoing, what the key decision points along their journey are, as well as identify and leverage their ecosystem of influencers.

Through social listening, we are able to pinpoint where patients are searching for information. We uncover what they are talking about online; who are they talking to, and through which channels. We then use the research findings to speak the patient population’s language.

Welch: Are there any other strategies that can be used to recruit patients with rare indications?

Tandon: There is no one-size-fits-all strategy, but our recommended approach generally includes a combination of study branding and a messaging strategy based on findings from the patient-specific research results. The messages are then deployed through direct-to-patient channels, partnerships with advocacy groups, community building, and personalized digital communications.

It is extremely difficult to recruit for rare diseases studies – but possible! There is limited awareness of the disease among the general public, and few patients will meet the eligibility criteria required to participate in the study. However, we believe there is tremendous untapped opportunity for these studies to accelerate enrollment and bring medicines to market faster, potentially satisfying an unmet need for care amongst rare diseases.