Be Part of Research – Digital Trial Engagement (DTE)

Date: 25 October 2021

NIHR is currently developing extended functionality for the Be Part of Research website which is planned to be available in Public Beta from April 2022. 

DTE will be an opt-in service for those studies on the CRN Portfolio and studies that are NIHR funded, the aims of the service are to:

• Engage research participants throughout their involvement in a study, keeping them informed about the study progress overall, their individual actions, updating them on the outcome of the study and thanking them for their participation – this will be done via an online account with researcher and participant facing interfaces.
• Put study information at the public’s fingertips, enabling them to search research across the UK and equip and empower them to initiate involvement in those studies by extending the user journey on BPOR. Members of the public will be able to create an account, including basic demographic information and conditions/areas of research that they would be interested in taking part in. We will then alert them when a study they may be interested in taking part in signs up to use the DTE service, the potential participant can then decide whether to self-refer to the study. Each study will have the opportunity to create a specific pre-screening questionnaire to ensure only those people who are suitable are able to self-refer. 

The benefits of the service will be: 

Participant

• Clear self-referral journal to enable potential participants to volunteer to take part in studies
• Improved participant experience when taking part in research

Researcher/Study Teams

• Accelerated recruitment from a pre-screened pool of potential participants
• Increased retention of participants due to improved communication during the study
• Increased protocol compliance by enabling participants to be better informed in real-time about the study requirements

We want to engage with as many researchers as possible to undertake user research with them to ensure that the service is designed for their needs, if you or other colleagues would like to be involved please email emma.maker@nihr.ac.uk to discuss further. 

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