Trygve Skonnord*, Dept. of General Practice, Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Finn Steen, Centre for Medical Web Research (CMWR), Oslo, Norway Atle Klovning*, CMWR.org and Dept. of General Practice, Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Track: Research Presentation Topic: Web 2.0 approaches for clinical practice, clinical research, quality monitoring Presentation Type: Poster presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Last modified: 2013-09-25

If you are the presenter of this abstract (or if you cite this abstract in a talk or on a poster), please show the QR code in your slide or poster (QR code contains this URL).

Background
Conducting research in general practice faces some methodological challenges that limit the use of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), especially with respect to trial logistics. Interventions take place in small and busy practices, and the researchers usually undertake the trial logistics and data collection themselves, as funding of research assistants who can do phone interviews or send out reminders is uncommon. Web-based questionnaires may greatly ease the data collection, but we discovered in the planning of an RCT, that there was no software that could automate the sending of emails. We have therefore produced our own software to manage the email scheduling necessary for our own study.

Research question(s)
Is it possible to develop a tool that can schedule emails to trial participants who are included at different points of time?

Methods
The planned RCT will consecutively include 270 patients in general practice with acute low back pain, but at different times over a period of 1-2 years. Data will be collected using web-based questionnaires at 19 defined points of time, from before treatment to 1 year after treatment. We will need to send out separate emails for each of the questionnaires, generating 5130 emails. This process must be done automated.

Results
We have searched and tested many different applications, but none of them have met the specifications that we have defined necessary for our trial logistics. We have therefore developed a program called Survey Email Scheduler (SES), which will manage the necessary email scheduling for our trial. After testing it in a pilot study and the main study, we plan to develop SES to an ”Open Source Software” which can be used in future trials in general practice for other GP researchers.

Conclusion
The Survey Email Scheduler (SES) will in the future contribute to make it possible to carry out larger RCTs in general practice, thereby improving the quality of research possible to undertake in general practice.