Background and Context:
Cancer Council Victoria (CCV) spent $AUS 22.9M in 2013 in support of cancer research. CCV’s Clinical Network (CCV CN) aims to improve clinical care and patient outcomes and established the Victorian Cancer Trials Link (VCTL) website in 2009 to better link patients with possible clinical trials.
Aim:
Assess usage of the VCTL by CCV CN members and gauge members’ views regarding possible improvements.
Method:
A group familiar with clinical trial activity and the VCTL developed questions and piloted these with CCV staff. A 37-item online survey was developed using Survey Monkey. Members of the CCV CN were invited by email to complete the survey. A small prize incentive was used to enhance survey participation. The survey was available for two weeks and members received two reminder emails.
Results:
The survey link was emailed to 707 individuals; 97 participated (14% response rate), Most respondents were clinical research professionals (n=97, 32%) or medical oncologists (n=23, 24%). Awareness of the VCTL was high (n=97, 83%). Of those who had visited the site in the past 12 months, 43% (n=60) had visited 1-3 times. People who had not visited VCTL reported that they find information from another source (n=8, 62%): usually via multidisciplinary meetings, through Cancer Trials Australia or disease-specific cooperative trial groups. 78% of respondents (n=67) had or would recommend the website to others. Suggestions for improvement of VCTL included improved search capability (such as phase I trials specifically), more frequent promotion and improved currency / accuracy of trial information.
Conclusions:
There is high awareness of the VCTL, at least in some professional groups. Not all CCV CN members are active in research, which may explain low response rate. Additional surveys and website statistics should be monitored to determine the effect of additional promotion and any website improvements.