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Answering Some Concerns About Clinical Trials
Feel like (or know someone who might want to start) participating in a clinical trial, but have hesitations because of valid concerns? All you probably need is some handholding – and a good dose of information that will ease your worries. Sift through these common concerns and take comfort in the idea that, at the end of the day, participating in clinical trials will definitely be for the best of those concerned.
Sure It Helps… But What About Me?
We know that clinical trials serve the purpose of identifying what does and does not work when it comes to medicine as well as health care. This is so health practitioners know how to best treat diseases. Many people are wont to ask:
• Is the treatment being tested on me safe? While every trial will come with some form of risk, trust that before the treatment gets to you it should have already passed as many tests as possible. Remember: clinical trials play only a minor part in the entire research that goes into developing new forms of treatments. A great deal of tests during the discovery, creation, purification and lab treatment (for both cell as well as animal studies) are undergone before doing human clinical trials.
• Will the treatment be out as soon as positive results are made? Most likely, no. Notwithstanding differences in treatments and medications across a very wide field of medicine, it can take a few years before a medicine or a treatment to get approval after it has undergone and completed several rounds of clinical trials. This is an extra measure of safety and effectiveness that can also determine – through several rounds of testing in different populations – if there is but a subset of the population that the treatment can work for.
• Will I be forced to take or do things I do not want to do? Everything that will be performed on participants will be described in detail prior to them giving their consent to be part of the trial. Apart from hoping to get more answers about health conditions through clinical trials, there is also the need to establish a sense of trust in the would-be participants by being very transparent about what will go on during the trial. If any prospective participant is not comfortable with even the minutest detail, he or she has the right to forgo participation.
For The Greater Good
Still feeling a bit iffy? Don’t be. Joining a clinical trial will always come with some initial feelings of hesitation, apprehension and even fear. But as always, these usually stems from the fear of the unknown. What is important is to be aware of what goes on and deciding on whether one is comfortable about all these things. There will be more questions – more particular ones, at that – about clinical trials, but these three are good to start out with. At the end of the day, participants still get a great deal of benefit out of joining because they were able to help themselves (i.e. having access to treatments and medications with a great potential) and helping the greater populace thanks to the new information that comes out after a clinical trial.
