Patient-reported outcomes: How useful are they? - Volume 26, Issue

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are any report on the status of a patient’s health condition as told by the patient him or herself or through an interview, without any interpretation by a clinician or anyone else. They generate information on those…

Quality patient decision aids to support healthcare decision making - Volume 30, Issue

This article describes the development and use of quality patient decision aids to support patient involvement in making healthcare decisions. Briefly, patient decision aids should provide at least information on options, benefits, and harms, and…

RCTs: Can the treatment work? Patient registries: Does the treatment work? - Volume 26, Issue

The first part of this article compares the main features of studies based on patient registry data with those of randomised clinical trials, providing a basis for better understanding the differences between the two. The second part details how to…

Writing for Patients - Volume 29, Issue

The first thing we must say is a huge “thank you” to Dr Juan Garcia Burgos and Mr Paul Blake for taking the time in an unprecedentedly manic year for the EMA to write a foreword for this issue of Medical Writing. The fact that they have prioritised…

Writing for patients: When and how? - Volume 29, Issue

The move towards patient engagement and patient involvement in healthcare decisions (“shared care”) has triggered a raft of new guidances from regulatory authorities, accompanied by new regulations mandating that pharmaceutical companies engage with…

Interview with Professor Matthias Rose on developing patient-reported outcomes and the PROMIS initiative - Volume 27, Issue

Professor Matthias Rose is Medical Director of the Psychosomatic Department at the Charité University Hospital in Berlin, Germany. In this interview, I discuss with him patient-reported outcomes and the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement…

Medical Communications and Writing for Patients - Volume 30, Issue

Dear All,

As I write this, at least some of us are likely to still be in some form of lockdown or quarantine. I pray that you and your families are all managing to stay as sane as possible, and I sincerely hope that you all stay safe and healthy.

I…

Protecting the rights of clinical trial patients through disclosure: The significance of plain language - Volume 27, Issue

Taking a step back to understand the history of clinical trial regulation triggers a broader perspective on the work we do or the work we will do. As regulatory medical writers, our role is often limited to the more technicalsubmission-level…

Unlocking the potential of patient data through responsible sharing – has anyone seen my keys? - Volume 29, Issue

The sharing of individual participant-level clinical data is now an almost routine extension of the clinical study life-cycle, and increasingly a vital element of leveraging real-word data. Responsible clinical study data sharing of appropriately…

Out on Our Own - Volume 26, Issue

Greetings, readers. As I write this, the EMWA spring conference is on the horizon and I hope I will have met as many of you as possible at the Freelance Business Forum in Birmingham. In this edition of the OOOO you will find two interesting articles…