Effects of Percieved Treament Options on Compleation of Clinical Study Visits in an Obstetrics Study

Objectives: To determine the effects of patient perception on perceived treatment options, and to determine whether distance traveled to receive treatment affects study visit attendance. Methods: Prior to enrolling in the study, patient information was gathered using NextGen, an electronic medical records (EMR) program. Pregnant women between the ages of 18 and 35, inclusive, were selected to participate in the study. The subjects were presented with information about the pregnancy study at their clinic visits verbally and/or via a brochure. Any questions that the patients had were addressed by the clinical research coordinators. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three different treatment groups – OMT, ultrasound, and standard care. A One-Way ANOVA was conducted to examine the relationship between the visit attendance and the treatment group, clinic group, and distance traveled to receive treatment. Results: Subjects in the three different treatment groups, on average, completed about the same amount of visits and traveled about the same distance to their respective clinics to receive treatment. Research participants from the Harris clinic completed more study visits than research participants from the PCC, even though participants from Harris traveled a further distance from their homes to the clinic. Conclusions: Patient perception of treatment options did not seem to have a significant effect on study visit attendance for the pregnant women involved in this study. Factors that could potentially hinder study visit attendance or clinical research enrollment were discussed; however, factors that effected study visit attendance for the participants were not examined.