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Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research

Date Submitted: Jul 21, 2020
Date Accepted: Dec 20, 2020

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Global Collaborative Social Network (Share4Rare) to Promote Citizen Science in Rare Disease Research: Platform Development Study

Radu R, Hernández-Ortega S, Borrega O, Palmeri A, Athanasiou D, Brooke N, Chapí I, Lecorvec A, Guglieri M, Perera-Lluna A, Garri J, Ryll B, Nafria Escalera B

Global Collaborative Social Network (Share4Rare) to Promote Citizen Science in Rare Disease Research: Platform Development Study

JMIR Form Res 2021;5(3):e22695

DOI: 10.2196/22695

PMID: 33779572

PMCID: 8088870

Share4Rare: A global collaborative social network to promote citizen science in rare diseases

  • Roxana Radu; 
  • Sara Hernández-Ortega; 
  • Oriol Borrega; 
  • Avril Palmeri; 
  • Dimitrios Athanasiou; 
  • Nicholas Brooke; 
  • Inma Chapí; 
  • Anaïs Lecorvec; 
  • Michela Guglieri; 
  • Alexandre Perera-Lluna; 
  • Jon Garri; 
  • Bettina Ryll; 
  • Begonya Nafria Escalera

ABSTRACT

Background:

Rare disease communities are spread around the globe and segmented by their condition. The most of the patients being affected by a rare disease have no research on their condition because of lack of knowledge due to absence of common groups from where to raise knowledge and promote research.

Objective:

To build a safe and secure community of rare diseases patients without geographical or language barriers to promote research.

Methods:

Co-creation design methodology was applied to build the first Share4Rare final version, with consultation and input from a variety of stakeholders (patients, caregivers, clinicians & researchers).

Results:

The workshops allowed us to develop a layered version of the platform, based on educating patients and caregivers with publicly accessible information, a secure community for the patients and caregivers, and a research section with the purpose of collecting patient information for analysis, which was the core and final value of the platform.

Conclusions:

Rare diseases research requires a global collaboration in which patients and caregivers have a key role. Collective intelligence methods implemented in digital platforms allows to reduce geographical and language boundaries, and involve in a unique and universal project patients. Their contribution is essential to reduce the scientific knowledge that experts have on rare diseases. Share4Rare has been designed as a global platform to facilitate the donation of clinical information to foster research that matters to the patients with rare conditions. The co-design methods with patients have been essential to perform a patient centric design of Share4Rare.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Radu R, Hernández-Ortega S, Borrega O, Palmeri A, Athanasiou D, Brooke N, Chapí I, Lecorvec A, Guglieri M, Perera-Lluna A, Garri J, Ryll B, Nafria Escalera B

Global Collaborative Social Network (Share4Rare) to Promote Citizen Science in Rare Disease Research: Platform Development Study

JMIR Form Res 2021;5(3):e22695

DOI: 10.2196/22695

PMID: 33779572

PMCID: 8088870

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