The use of telecommunication and virtualization among ongoing and discontinued COVID-19 clinical trials: A cross-sectional analysis

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted clinical research due to safety measures such as social distancing and lockdowns. However, developing treatments for COVID-19 relies on conducting clinical trials. Using telemedicine or virtual methods may support ongoing trials and limit the pandemic's impact...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Contemporary clinical trials 2022-03, Vol.114, p.106681-106681, Article 106681
Main Authors: Greenough, Mary C., Sajjadi, Nicholas B., Rucker, Brayden, Vassar, Matt, Hartwell, Micah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical Trials
Communicable Disease Control
COVID-19
Cross-Sectional Studies
Humans
Pandemics
Remote Data Collection
SARS-CoV-2
Short Communication
Telemedicine
Virtualization
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Summary:The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted clinical research due to safety measures such as social distancing and lockdowns. However, developing treatments for COVID-19 relies on conducting clinical trials. Using telemedicine or virtual methods may support ongoing trials and limit the pandemic's impact on clinical research. To examine the use of virtual methods among ongoing and discontinued COVID-19 clinical trials. In this cross-sectional analysis, we performed a systematic search of ClinicalTrials.gov for COVID-19 related trials registered since the pandemic began. In masked, duplicate fashion, authors extracted data from included studies, noting whether trialists reported using telecommunication, virtualization, or remote data collection to deliver interventions and monitor outcome measures. The authors also coded the use of virtual methods for recruitment, enrollment, or follow-up visits. Chi-square tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to assess differences in the use of virtual methods between ongoing and discontinued studies and differences between intervention types. Our search returned 2549 clinical trials, of which 2383 were included. Of included studies, 2109 (88.5%) were ongoing and 274 (11.5%) were discontinued. Overall, 519 (24.6%) ongoing COVID-19 trials reported using virtual methods for trial conduct and 43 (15.7%) discontinued trials reported using virtual methods. There was a statistically significant difference in the rate of reporting virtual methods between discontinued and ongoing trials (X21 = 27.2, P 
ISSN:1551-7144
1559-2030
DOI:10.1016/j.cct.2022.106681