Electronic consent demonstrates potential to overcome 'key barrier' in stroke trial recruitment

NeuroNews highlighted research led by the University of Cincinnati's Iris Davis and the University of Minnesota's Christopher Streib that revealed the potential advantages associated with electronic informed consent in acute ischemic stroke studies, including increased enrollment rates and improved adherence to consent documentation. The findings were recently published in the journal Stroke.

“EConsent […] was associated with higher individual site enrolment, higher remote consent rates, and improved consent documentation adherence, over paper consent,” the study authors wrote. “Our study outlines the potential advantages of eConsent adoption in future acute ischemic stroke clinical trials and stroke research networks.”

The study reviewed the use of eConsent in the Phase 3 MOST trial, finding 33.7% of the total trial cohort were enrolled using eConsent and 56.1% of trial sites used eConsent at least once. Sites that used eConsent enrolled a higher number of study participants compared to sites that did not.

“Today, electronic approaches commonly replace conventional methods of paper documentation in health care, and in clinical research, to better manage medical data maintenance and access," Davis, UC clinical research manager and NIH StrokeNet administrative codirector, told NeuroNews. "EConsent provides a contemporary solution to documenting informed consent in clinical trials for patients, researchers and health care systems...A shift towards using eConsent over paper consent could improve the efficiency of stroke trials by providing more patients the opportunity to participate, and by decreasing the regulatory reporting burden on research teams.”

Read the NeuroNews article.

Featured photo at top of illustration of brain with stroke symptoms. Photo/PeterSchreiber.media/iStock.