Patients’ perspectives on a drug safety monitoring system for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases based on patient-reported outcomes

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) on adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are increasingly used in cohort event monitoring (CEM) to obtain a better understanding of patients’ real-world experience with drugs. Despite the leading role for patients, little is known about their perspectives on CEM systems.

In a cross-sectional open survey following the rationale of the Technology Acceptance Model, we aimed to obtain insight in patients’ perspectives on the perceived usefulness, ease of use and attitude toward using a PRO-based drug safety monitoring system for ADRs attributed to biologics.

Patients considered structural reporting of ADRs in web-based questionnaires as useful and not burdensome. It was preferred to link the questionnaire frequency to regular hospital consultations or the biologic administration schedule. Various respondents were interested in sharing questionnaires with their medical specialist (49.0%) or pharmacist (34.2%), and suggested to minimize the questionnaire frequency in case of an unaltered situation or absence of ADRs.

Patients’ perspectives should be considered in the setup of PRO-based CEM studies, as this contributes to data quality and patient centeredness. Since incorporation of patients’ perspectives in CEM studies is indispensable, a delicate balance should be found between user-friendliness and study aims.