Awareness and attitude of general public about clinical trials from a developing country
Keywords:
Medicine (Clinical Research)Abstract
Knowledge and awareness about clinical trials amongst general public is essential to improve the recruitment rate of patients. The present study was conducted to assess such aspects in semi-urban and rural India. A cross-sectional pre-validated questionnaire based assessment of views of public regarding the various aspects of clinical trials ranging from general, ethical, confidentiality and publication was conducted. Descriptive statistics was used to represent the responses in the form of proportions. A total of 400 participants were recruited for the study and 92% of the study participants opined that clinical trials benefit society while 9.7% opined that it harms the society. Nearly three-fourth (285/336, 73.8%) considered clinical research as an essential step for the development of new drugs. Surprisingly, only 118/261 (45.2%) of the study participants felt that the confidentiality of the study participants were adequately protected. Also, only 79/247 (32%) and 86/234 (36.8%) study participants were aware of compensation in case of participation in clinical trials and adverse effects respectively. To conclude, we observed an optimistic trend towards increasing awareness about clinical trials. However, more robust studies in larger groups of individuals from various strata need to be conducted to assess the attributing factors for the difference in knowledge and awareness about clinical trials.
References
Koreith K, Anderson A. New growth and decline in Asia clinical trials. The Center Watch Monthly 20:1-6, 2013.
Rahman S, Majumder MAA. Managing clinical trials in Asia: Issues, threats, opportunities and approaches. South East Asia J Pub Health 2:80-4, 2012.
Mishra S. “Clinical Trial Industry in India- A Progress Story,” US India Business Council (Undated). Available at: http://www.usibc.com/sites/default/files/members/files/ficcidrsmishraaiims.pdf (Accessed Aug 20, 2015).
Poongothai S, Unnikrishnan R, Balasubramanian J, Nair MD, Mohan V. Why are clinical trials necessary in India? Perspect Clin Res 5:55-59, 2014.
Joshi V, Kulkarni AA. Public awareness of clinical trials: A qualitative pilot study in Pune. Perspect Clin Res 3:125-32, 2012.
Gota V, Nookala M, Yadav A, Kannan S, Ali R. Quality of informed consent in cancer clinical trials in India: A cross-sectional survey. J Clin Oncol 33:e1652, 2015.
Burt T, Dhillon S, Sharma P, Khan D, Deepa MV, Alam S, et al. PARTAKE Survey of Public Knowledge and Perceptions of Clinical Research in India. Diemert DJ, ed. PLoS ONE 8:e68666, 2013.
Terwindt C. Health rights litigation pushes for accountability in clinical trials in India. Available at: http://www.hhrjournal.org/2014/11/06/health-rights-litigation-pushes-for-accountability-in-clinical-trials-in-india/ (Accessed Aug 20, 2015).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with the American Journal of Experimental and Clinical Resaerch (AJECR) agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
