PI-122 - WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM TRENDS IN PATIENT RECRUITMENT ADVERTISING IN THE PAST 20 YEARS?

V. Zhang¹, K. Getz²; ¹Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA, ²Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, Boston, MA, USA.

Background: Clinical trial advertisements (ads) are a significant way through which prospective patients learn about and act upon clinical trial participation opportunities. During the recruitment phase of a clinical trial, advertising and promotion make up a substantial share of the total patient recruitment budget. However, patient recruitment is challenging for clinical research professionals. With the introduction of mobile technology, digital and social media, and instant messaging, capturing the attention of patients has become more difficult and competitive. Our study aims to identify trends in the written and graphical content of clinical trial ads to provide insights for future ad strategies.

Methods: A total of 54 visual ads from two distinct time periods (2004-2012, N=22; 2018-2023, N=32) were compared. Visual ads included flyers, print ads, and social media posts. Ads were collected from advertising agencies serving pharmaceutical companies via publicly available website displays and a public internet archive. Ads were coded for their presentation of the trial’s investigational product, participant eligibility, and participant benefits; general information about clinical research and disease symptoms; prompts to contact the research site; action-inciting sentences; and proportion of graphics vs. text.

Results: The average word count of patient recruitment ads decreased in older to newer ads from an average of 81 words to 58 words (p=0.118). The proportion of sentences urging the reader to pursue more information or providing the study site’s URL and contact information significantly increased around 674% (p=0.029). Sentences geared towards prompting the reader into action also increased in newer ads (p=0.268). The majority of newer ads had more titles in the form of questions (28.1%) than older ads (9.1%, p=0.068). While the number of graphics used in older and newer ads did not change significantly, newer ads (71.9%) used heavier graphic content than older ads (59.1%, p=0.337).

Conclusion: Our study is the first effort to identify trends in the copy and graphics content of clinical trial ads. Our results suggest that future ads should focus on incorporating more education-focused content to set the patient’s expectations before they decide to participate, enhance patient trust, and improve patient retention.