Evaluating Participant Satisfaction and Results Sharing in Clinical Trials

Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are considered the gold standard for evaluating bio-medical interventions.
Their results can have important impacts on clinical practice and the development of scientific knowledge.
Often recruitment of trial participants is one of the most challenging aspects of successfully conducting a
trial. If participants are appreciated, and involved in the communication of the clinical trial results, this may
have a positive impact of future trial recruitment. Whilst clinical trials researchers may intend to share
study results with their participants, this intention is often passive with no clear plan for knowledge
dissemination. A 2018 Canadian Clinical Research Participation Survey conducted by Clinical Trials BC
(CTBC) revealed that many participants felt disconnected and underappreciated throughout their clinical
trial experience. Following the 2018 survey, to improve participant experiences, CTBC formed a Provincial
Working Group, and a Best Practices Toolkit was established to better communicate study results with
participants. Although the toolkit is currently available on the CTBC website, there is still no standardized
process in which to distribute it to the main stakeholders (i.e., clinical trial participants). The proposed
evaluation plan aims to improve the experiences of both researchers and participants in clinical trials by
producing useful and accessible scientific knowledge.

Faculty Supervisor:

Srinivas Murthy;David Moher

Student:

Partner:

Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Other services (except public administration); Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program: