A systematic review to identify and collate factors influencing patient journeys through clinical trials

Patient-centred trial design and delivery; improves recruitment and retention; increases participant satisfaction; encourages participation by a more representative cohort; and allows researchers to better meet participants’ needs. Research in this area mostly focusses on narrow facets of trial participation. We aimed to systematically identify the breadth of patient-centred factors influencing participation and engagement in trials, and collate them into a framework. Through this we hoped to assist researchers to identify factors that could improve patient-centred trial design and delivery. Robust qualitative and mixed methods systematic reviews are becoming increasingly common in health research. The protocol for this review was prospectively registered on PROSPERO, CRD42020184886. We used the SPIDER (Sample, Phenomenon of Interest, Design, Evaluation, Research Type) framework as a standardised systematic search strategy tool. 3 databases were searched as well as references checking, and thematic synthesis was conducted. Screening agreement was performed and code and theme checking were conducted by 2 independent researchers. Data were drawn from 285 peer-reviewed articles. 300 discrete factors were identified, and sorted into 13 themes and subthemes. The full catalogue of factors is included in the Supplementary Material. A summary framework is included in the body of the article. This paper focusses on outlining common ground that themes share, highlighting critical features, and exploring interesting points from the data. Through this, we hope researchers from multiple specialities may be better able to meet patients’ needs, protect patients’ psychosocial wellbeing, and optimise trial recruitment and retention, with direct positive impact on research time and cost efficiency.