Clinical Trial Participation Survey: What We Learned from 4,000 Patients

When we understand why patients take part in research, we can make clinical trial recruitment – and every clinical research step – more effective and engaging. That's why we teamed up with Scorr Marketing and our some of our partners to survey 4,000 patients about their attitudes toward clinical research.

We identified partners who work across a range of conditions, including the American Kidney Fund, Asthma & Allergy Network, Healthline, JDRF, Lung Cancer Alliance, Lupus Research Alliance, Melanoma Research Alliance, and MS Association of America. Our goal was to understand not just how patients feel in general about trial participation, but also how needs and motivations differ by condition area.

Some of the findings we found particularly interesting:

• On average, patients ranked receiving payment for participating last on their list of decision-making priorities. Knowing that the trial wouldn't interfere with their current treatment or make their condition worse ranked first.
• Allergy/asthma patients are more than twice as likely than melanoma or lung cancer patients to cite payment for participation in a trial as a significant motivator.
• Patients with gastrointestinal disease who took our survey were the least likely to have taken part in a trial.
• Kidney disease and multiple sclerosis patients place a higher priority on logistical factors, such as the location of a trial or the availability of travel services, than do patients with other conditions.
• Kidney disease patients are the most confident about making well-informed health decisions.
• Patients with melanoma, kidney disease, or lung cancer were the most likely to say that the opinions of their families and friends were very important to their decision to participate. Input from family and friends made the least impact on patients with gastrointestinal disease or allergies/asthma considering trial participation.

"Patients want and need new treatment options, yet the vast majority of research studies are delayed due to challenges with recruitment," said Lindsey Wahlstrom-Edwards, Director of Partnerships at Antidote. "When the industry understands patient motivations for taking part in clinical trials and how those motivations differ by indication, they can design better trials and recruitment strategies. Then new treatments will be available to patients faster."

Download a free executive summary of the survey below, and stay tuned for more in-depth analysis from us next year.