Awareness and Attitude of Cancer Patients About Participation in Clinical Research (CR) in Saudi Arabia

Enrollment of patients in CR may be impacted by their levels of awareness and attitude toward participation. Our study aims at assessing the awareness and willingness to participate in CR and identifying the barriers and influencing factors for participation. A cross-sectional study was performed using an interview-based questionnaire composed of close-ended questions conducted by trained research coordinators. Descriptive statistics, univariate and multivariate analyses were applied.

Clinical Trials are essential for the identification of effective therapies in modern medicine. As the biomedical understanding of diseases increases, a growing number of new opportunities will require increasing numbers of patients agreeing to participate in a clinical trial Public awareness about the need for clinical research and the benefit beyond participation is important. Although the main objective of clinical trials is to provide a high standard of care and help in advancement of medical knowledge, only a small portion of patients receive treatment as part of a formal clinical trial Misconceptions about clinical trials are frequent, primarily due to lack of adequate information from the treating physician; the complexity of the study procedure; preferences of patients regarding a particular treatment or no treatment; uncertainty and the experimental nature of a clinical trial (additional side effects, less known about the treatment) and concern about confidential information are some of the significant barriers to participation. Healthy individuals and patients do not have the same perception, since patients have stressed and vulnerable feelings after diagnosis of their illness having a negative impact on patient's attitude towards a trial. The ability to recruit patients for future clinical trials will depend, in part, on understanding the barriers of participation in clinical trials. Unfortunately, there is no data about the public awareness and attitudes toward participation in clinical trials in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is the purpose of this study to address this issue to create some baseline data to increase the accrual rate of clinical trials.