Clinical research is becoming increasingly important with pressure to increase its efficacy and make the process more efficient. The primary goal is to churn out as much accurate research as possible in the least time to cope with the higher need of the present and the future.
Electronic Patient-Reported Outcomes or ePRO is one of the innovations introduced to achieve these patient self-reporting goals. While they have become popular, there are also concerns about the extent of their reliability.
The best way to gauge their reliability is by understanding what it is and its operational dynamics.
What are Electronic Patient-Reported Outcomes (ePRO)?
ePRO is a digital replacement for the pen-and-paper self-reporting used during clinical trials to get the basic information about trial participants and their health. The need for ePRO arose because pen-and-paper reporting is tedious and often leads to missing information when patients skip sections to save time.
With ePROs digitization, researchers can ensure all necessary sections are filled out using conditions that prevent people from skipping questions.
The result is that researchers no longer face issues related to missing information, and the participant data automatically gets transferred to all synchronized systems due to internal digital integration.
Can ePRO be Trusted?
The answer to this question depends on the kind of reliability a person is seeking from the system. ePRO has better chances of providing complete data sets for each patient because its settings can prevent them from moving to the next question without answering the previous one.
However, ePRO cannot gauge the truthfulness of the information provided by the patients, which is also true for the traditional method of data collection. Hence, in this regard, both methods carry the same level of reliability.
Final Thoughts
In short, using ePRO is reliable for getting patients or participants to fill in complete details; however, it cannot detect if the person fills incorrect information on purpose.
If you want to know more about ePRO, you can contact Clinical PURSUIT’s team for more information.
