Abstract

This exploratory study tested the research question: What is the relationship between the perceived clinical trial office (CTO) digitalization level and data quality, study time, and staff retention? There is a lack of empirical research to date on CTO personnel. Using a complete-data sample of 81 online respondents from the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) Clinical Research Innovation (CRI) listserv, an anonymous online survey was administered. The survey was developed through pilot groups in a three-stage approach. Likert-type scales were used to measure respondent perceptions of the study variables. Perceived CTO digitalization was found to be significantly positively related (p < .01) to data quality (r = .43) and staff retention (r = .51), but not to reduced study time (r = -.05). These relationships remained significant while controlling for respondent length of service, CTO time of digital use, and number of digital tools adopted by a CTO. In addition, a significant positive relationship between data quality and staff retention was found (r = .49). Despite acknowledged study limitations, the results are promising for continued research using CTO personnel to examine the positive impact of increased digitalization on CTO issues.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.