Aims: Clinical trials participation is critical to advance cancer research and in turn improve patient care, yet patient enrolment remains low. Fragmentation within the clinical trials structural landscape, along with complex information and medical jargon that is difficult for patients and carers to navigate, necessitates that repositories of clinical trials information be better tailored to stakeholder needs in order to optimise patient engagement and outcomes. In order ro enhance equity of access to clinical trials, this study aims to establish the barriers and facilitators for both clinician access to clinical trials opportunities, as well as patient access to clinical trials information.
Methods: Using the double diamond design framework, focus groups and semi-structured interviews were conducted with lived experience participants (n=7) and healthcare professionals (n=12). Data was analysed both deductively, informed by the constructs of the consolidated framework for implementation research (CFIR2.0), and inductively, to capture additional findings, beyond the framework.
Results/conclusion: Preliminary findings from 7 lived-experience participants and 12 healthcare professionals in phase one of this co-design study highlights a range of challenges with accessing relevant, up-to-date and easily understandable information about clinical trials. These include low awareness of, and literacy in relation to, trials concepts for patients, along with inefficient search processes and trials information dissemination from clinicians’ perspectives. These findings are important because they can inform the development of barrier matched strategies to enhance patient access to clinical trials information. To that end, they will be employed in the co-design of a clinical trials navigation tool, which will provide patients and healthcare professionals with a curated list of clinical trials based on individual patient demographics and cancer characteristics. The tool will use large language models to generate lay-language text, to address diverse health literacy needs and maximise the tools equitable reach.