Good morning!
The second day of the ICASA meeting was very lively. We’ve had discussions on several practical aspects that are important to manage the trial.
Data-managament: this will be done with a sophisticated system of Amsterdam Medical Centre AMC. Input of all CRF’s goes trough secure internet connections and the database is optimally guarded.
Finance: we have substantial central funding; however the participating centers will have to generate additional local funding. Transparency and independency is of outmost importance in this, we all agreed. We discussed the do’s and don’ts with this financial part,
Communication: we defined the key messages in our external communication, and exchanged views on how ADHD, SUD and psychiatric research are perceived in public opinion in the various countries. We have to take cultural differences into account when informing society of this important scientific work; e.g. it is essential that one understands that ICASA’s goal is to find evidence based diagnostic and treatment procedures. It is neither a disease awareness project nor a population-screening programme.
Furthermore, the first trainingsession commenced, to get all researchers trained in the specific diagnostic tools we use. Today we will go on practicing patient-interviews, and we’ll video-tape the individual training sessions to maximize the benefit of this. Could be fun as well! In this way we are prepared to handle all patient-interaction situations in real life practice.
Geurt van de Glind
