Elicit allows you to search both research papers and clinical trials. This guide explains how to effectively search and filter clinical trial data.
Switching to Clinical Trials Search
From the homepage
Select clinical trials in the search window when starting a Research Report, Systematic Review, or Find Papers workflow
From the Gather stage
Look for the corpus selector button (displays either "Research papers" or "Clinical trials")
Click the button to open the dropdown menu
Select "Clinical trials" from the options
In a Research Agent session
Research Agent sessions have no corpus selector. To keep a session to trials, say so in your prompt, for example "only use clinical trial registrations".
Available Filters for Clinical Trials
Once you've selected clinical trials as your search corpus, you can use specialized filters by clicking the "Filters" button.
Has Results
Filter to show only trials that have published results. Useful when you want to see completed studies with available outcomes data.
Phase Filters
NA: Not applicable
Early Phase 1: Very early safety studies
Phase 1: Initial safety and dosage studies
Phase 2: Efficacy and side effects studies
Phase 3: Large-scale effectiveness comparisons
Phase 4: Post-market surveillance studies
Recruitment Status
Active, not recruiting: Study ongoing but not accepting new participants
Completed: Study has ended normally
Enrolling by invitation: Participants recruited by invitation only
Not yet recruiting: Study registered but recruitment hasn't started
Recruiting: Currently accepting participants
Suspended: Study temporarily halted
Terminated: Study ended early
Withdrawn: Study withdrawn before enrolling participants
Available: Expanded access studies
Publication Year
Filter clinical trials by registration or publication year. This filters by the most recent publish date, since trials can be updated multiple times.
Limitations
Data Source: Clinical trials data is sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov, which primarily includes trials conducted in or by US-based institutions and sponsors. International trials may be underrepresented.
Search Capabilities: Unlike research papers, clinical trials search focuses on the trial protocol and registration information rather than full-text results papers.
Results Availability: The "Has Results" filter indicates whether results have been posted to ClinicalTrials.gov. Many completed trials may have published results in journals not linked to the registry entry.
When to Use Clinical Trials vs. Research Papers
Use Clinical Trials search when: looking for ongoing or planned studies, investigating specific interventions or drugs, understanding the research pipeline in a field, or finding trials for potential participation.
Use Research Papers search when: looking for published results and analyses, seeking systematic reviews or meta-analyses, wanting detailed methodology discussions, or needing peer-reviewed conclusions.
You can always switch between the two corpora to get a full view of both the ongoing research and published findings in your area of interest.