So how do we go about recruiting patients for clinical trials? There are 4 key elements to consider.

Firstly, finding the patients. We need to go out and look for relevant people, so locating them in the first place is a primary concern.

Secondly, engaging with them. Once we’ve found our audience of potential trial participants, we need to give them good reasons to want to take part.

Thirdly, qualifying the patients. Each trial will have its own Inclusion/Exclusion criteria. As far as possible, we want to pre-qualify patients that are suitable, before sending them to a research site for full screening.

And fourthly, retaining them on the trial. We want to have engaged, enthusiastic trial participants who will stay in the trial to completion.

In the next few vids, I’ll expand on each of these elements.