In Lockdown: Are We Accounting For Changes In Patients' Mental Health In Global Patient Data Collection?

By Anna Burgan (Nakonechny), Director of Business Development, Clinical Outcome Assessments

As the world closed its doors to human interaction earlier this year, our digital platforms like social media, electronic patient data capture technologies, and wearable sensors were put to the test.

No doubt these platforms are functioning in their ability—but are we missing a key element in assessing the patient’s mood? Is this isolation affecting a patient’s mental health? Indeed, if said patient is already emotionally or cognitively compromised, how does this manifest itself in the data we capture during a study?

Research shows that data collected from a patient in a clinical trial can be impacted by mood. As the general population feels locked in and suffers from job insecurity or even job loss, isolation, and weight gain due to lack of mobility, are we accounting for changes in their mental state in our data collection? During this pandemic, it is critical that we capture the remote patient’s voice on a global scale.

The purpose of this blog post is to explore the tools we currently have and uncover the hidden complexities of a patient’s environment that may not have been considered before. We will suggest new strategies and tools to augment and amplify the patient’s voice during this pandemic.