It is believed that a clinical trial is a partnership between a patient and a researcher that is based on trust and understanding. This is a partnership of peers, with both parties hoping for a favorable outcome that saves lives and bring on major changes in the field of medicine. At the heart of this partnership there lies trust from both partners; patients as well as the treating doctors or scientists.
There are many reasons to enroll patients, to start with is; to update them with an understanding of why clinical research scientists engage in trials, to ensure that patients are aware with research (via consents), to have advancement in science, and amongst the most important is to save lives.
A researcher should understand the patient’s trust and concerns when they are choosing to participate in trials. Understanding should be such that it lights the way to designing trials that will more stable in design and safe in application.
What patients need from a research while participating?
• To regain health, and retain to it as well.
• A patient with an attitude of refusal to surrender to their disease, will certainly try to put on a fight as such patients depend on a hope of revitalization.
• To have the satisfaction of knowing that a patient has done everything possible to fight the grave disease.
• To take advantage of a new treatment that may be inaccessible by any other way.
• Trust in the physicians and other staff who are conducting the research, while also having a faith that the clinical trial staff are working with the top experts in the field of the research.
• To contribute to the knowledge and well being of science and society, even though, it is learned that it may not be of personal benefit.
• For monetary gain may be, although for not all trials have this as major motivation.