Patients use more specific keywords while seeking clinical trial information online, a new study

Nov. 2, 2010 - PRLog -- E-patients searching for health information related to clinical research studies tend to use longer and more specific keywords relative to general Internet searches, according to a study conducted by Applied Informatics, Inc., the company that runs the award-winning online clinical trial matching service, TrialX.com (http://trialx.com). The findings of this study are to be reported in the Annual Symposium of the American Medical Informatics Association at Washington D.C. on Nov 16th, 2010.

The study analyzed an anonymized sample log data of about 20,000 patients who visited TrialX.com during a six month period to identify the patterns in their search queries. On an average, patients searching for clinical trial information used 4-5 keywords in their search query relative to general Internet searches that are about 2-3 words long. Furthermore, the researchers found that “the top 1-word queries contained specific treatment or coded drug names undergoing clinical trials and the 5-word queries were more verbose when consumers were looking for trials related to a condition in a given city.”

The results of the study will be used to “dynamically tailor the information presented to the user, thereby providing a richer, personalized experience on the [TrialX] website and potentially increase the enrollment in the studies” says Chintan Patel, the Co-founder and Technology Lead at TrialX (and the Lead Author of the paper).

About 80% of clinical trials are delayed due to lack of enrollment of required patients to evaluate the effectiveness and efficacy of a drug before it is released to the market. Over 70% of Americans search health information online and a large majority of them are searching for new treatments.

Signup (http://trialx.com/accounts/register?investigator=1
) to receive more details on the search queries and patterns used by consumers or attend the presentation during the AMIA conference.

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TrialX is a web-based platform that combines the most powerful aspects of decision engines (algorithms) and social networks (the power of the community) to help patients find clinical trials that match their health conditions and connect with investigators conducting trials quickly and effortlessly.