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Table 1 Top 10 most frequent responses about types of problems experienced when using eligibility criteriaa

From: Clinical trial recruiters’ experiences working with trial eligibility criteria: results of an exploratory, cross-sectional, online survey in the UK

Rank Comment type Category (Clarity, Feasibility, Suitability, Other) n Proportion of all comments (n = 671)
1 Criteria generally ambiguous or unclear Clarity 297 44%
2 Tests required in a short timeframe (i.e. difficult to achieve) Feasibility 134 20%
3 Criteria too restrictive Suitability 41 6%
4 Required tests not standardly done locally Feasibility 40 6%
5 Hard to gather required data in time available (e.g. information hard to locate, stored in several places) Feasibility 22 3%
6 Required timelines unclear Clarity 20 3%
=7 Difficulty implementing subjective eligibility criteria Clarity 19 3%
=7 Problems with wording, phrases or terminology used Clarity 19 3%
9 Criteria too complex Clarity 18 3%
10 Unclear which previous treatments allowed Clarity 17 3%
  1. a Excluding comments that could not be categorised as the meaning was not totally clear, n = 33
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ISSN: 1745-6215