49  Check Incoming Participant Messages

A significant amount of staff time needs to be spent responding to messages from on-study participants. The following information outlines the procedures for responding to messages

49.1 Overview of process

  1. A message is received
  2. Unless very trivial*, the message needs to be recorded in their slack thread. Summarize the message and post a brief reply to their thread about the issue as described by the participant, and your reply, if any (see the Responding section below).
  3. If the message would impact the participant’s data or their payment, a WOG (web log) also needs to be submitted
  4. A response to the message usually (but not always) needs to be sent.

49.2 *What is a trivial message?

It’s important to record any message that might affect: a) a participants’ data, b) a participant’s payment or participation, or c) our interactions with a participant.

Trivial messages would be those that don’t affect our relationship with the participant, don’t affect their data, don’t affect their payment or participation. Think about it like: would knowing about this message change how you interact with this participant later?

For example:

  • Participant asks what their payment date is, or asks for the link to the screening survey to send to an interested friend. That is just an request for information - it does need a response, but does not need to be recorded in their thread.
  • Participant responds to monthly payment message with ‘Thank you, no questions’ - that does not need to be recorded and we also probably wouldn’t need to respond to them.
  • Participant responds to monthly payment message with “Why didn’t you tell me I missed surveys? This isn’t fair” - That probably needs to be recorded AND does need a response (but probably one from Ariela or Susan). It tells us that the participant is possibly belligerent and we might need to tread carefully around them in future communications.
  • Participant sent a DM out of the blue saying how much the study has helped them and how grateful they are - probably doesn’t NEED to be recorded, but I would probably do it anyway. It tells us that the participant is very nice and appreciative and I might use that information to forgive a missed survey or two. It would also warrant a warm response.

That’s another detail about participant communication that is hard to quantify: mostly we want our messages to be detached, factual, clinical and succinct. But sometimes participants express hardship or positive news that requires warm or sympathetic responses. Currently, only Ariela and Susan will send that type of message, but it’s worth you knowing about!

49.3 Template responses

Almost all participant questions fall into just a few categories, and all are summarized in these FAQs which you can use to craft a response:

Some issues are easy to respond to and you can rely on these templates. Be sure to make appropriate edits where it says to insert a specific date, time, RA name, etc!

49.4 Where to look for messages

Participants may send messages through any of the following channels:

  1. STAR Email
  2. Google voice text message
  3. Voicemail on the study phone
  4. STAR Direct Messages

Sometimes, messages are duplicated - we get an email alert every time a STAR DM is received, for example. Or participants may send a text message and then follow up with a DM. Again it’s VERY IMPORTANT that you verify whether a message has already been responded to or addressed by other means, before you reply, so always check the participant thread before replying.

Email messages, once handled, should be checked off as completed (right click on the flag icon and click “complete”). They should then moved to the appropriate inbox Subfolder (!!Completed Participant Communications for any direct email from a participant; STAR Alerts/Direct Messages for any notification about a DM, etc.) In general the inbox should be kept empty except for messages that are in process or have not yet been handled. If you aren’t sure where a message should go, please ask Susan/Ariela.

49.5 Identifying participant subids

If the message is coming in as a STAR DM, you can check their user name in the STAR User Admin (near the bottom in the sidebar menu). It takes a while to load!

Email addresses and phone numbers can usually be identified by loading the enrollment database. Sometimes people write from a new email address to tell us a new phone number - in this case you’ll have to search the enrollment database by name.

49.6 Steps in responding:

In the participant thread:

  1. State how the message came in (google voice, email, DM, etc)
  2. Summarize the issue
  3. Paste a text draft of your message in the thread so Susan and Ariela can modify if needed, when they tell you it’s okay to send.
  4. Send the response, and indicate in the thread that you have done so (checkmark emoji on the final message, or “Done”)

For complicated issues, you will just complete steps 1 & 2, then tag Susan / Ariela. They will tell you what response needs to be sent, or if they send the response directly, they will post the summary when they make their response.