What you can build criteria from
- Conditions: diagnosed conditions and disease history.
- Medications: current or prior medication use.
- Structured criteria: age, lab values, BMI, prior diagnoses, and other numeric or categorical fields, built with the eligibility rule builder.
How rules combine
This is the part worth understanding before you add rules. It follows a specific structure:1
Ordinary rules of the same type mean 'any one of these'
Add Albuterol, Fluticasone, and Symbicort as three ordinary medication rules, with no grouping action taken, and a volunteer qualifies by being on any one of them. The same default applies to condition rules.
2
Group when you need more than one at once
If you specifically need a volunteer on more than one item at the same time, both Drug A and Drug B for example, select those rules and choose “Group rules” then “Match ALL” (this is what the rest of this page calls an all-of group, as opposed to the default any-of behavior of an ungrouped pool).
3
Exclusion rules always apply on their own
Every exclusion rule stands independently, regardless of how your inclusion rules are grouped. A volunteer who meets even one exclusion rule stays out of the pipeline, no matter what else they match.
4
Everything is combined together at the top level
Your ungrouped medication pool, your ungrouped condition pool, any explicit groups, and your structured criteria (age, lab values, and so on) all have to pass together. A volunteer has to clear every category you’ve configured.
The rule builder displays a live summary of your configured criteria. This summary reflects the actual matching logic used for volunteer screening.
Adding parameters to a study
1
Open your study's Screening Questions tab
This is where eligibility rules live in the Setup wizard.
2
Search for a condition, medication, or criterion
Results update as you type.
3
Add it, and set a threshold or range if it's numeric
For structured criteria like age or a lab value, set the range or threshold you need.
4
Group only if you need to require more than one item at once
Otherwise, leave rules ungrouped. That already means “any one of these” for conditions and medications.