{"id":216,"date":"2009-12-09T19:32:37","date_gmt":"2009-12-09T18:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=216"},"modified":"2009-12-09T19:32:37","modified_gmt":"2009-12-09T18:32:37","slug":"should-patients-be-obliged-to-participate-in-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/12\/09\/should-patients-be-obliged-to-participate-in-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Should Patients be obliged to participate in research?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the heading of this article<\/a> in the BBC news today. The article argues that too few patients are volunteering to participate in a particular research trial.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The problem is described thusly:<\/p>\n

Our own experience of this phenomenon is the conduct of our stem cell trial designed for patients brought to us as emergencies suffering a heart attack.<\/p>\n

The possibility of using a patient’s own stem cells to repair the damage caused by their heart attack could benefit the thousands of people suffering with this condition each year.<\/p>\n

Stringent laws and regulations are in place to ensure that trials of such new therapies are carefully conducted and the patient’s health protected.<\/p>\n

Indeed the ethical process dictates that patients are given as much information as reasonable to make an informed decision to consent to the trial.<\/p>\n

The problem is that in the emergency situation there is an awful lot of information to convey in a short time to obtain ‘informed consent’.<\/p>\n

‘Potential benefits’<\/p>\n

Clearly a balance is needed, given the tremendous potential benefits these new treatments could deliver for these conditions.<\/p>\n

In our stem cell trial, brief preliminary consent is obtained as the patient is treated for their heart attack.<\/p>\n

Invariably, the patient is keen to participate.<\/p>\n

Patients from more privileged areas are more likely to be recruited to our trial than those from the lower socio-economic environment<\/p>\n

However, several hours later, following successful treatment of the heart attack, when the patient is approached to consent in full for the main part of the study, they often decline.<\/p>\n

Whilst this is understandable, given the relief the person must be feeling having been successfully treated for their heart attack, it creates a problem for the field of medical research which tries to improve on the success of modern medicine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Where to start?<\/p>\n

Firstly it is unclear that there is even a problem here. It looks like on the face of it that patients are being enrolled in a research project with very little time to digest whether they want to participate (understandably because of the emergency situation) and probably with a fair element of therapeutic misconception and then given more time to reflect, and no obvious therapeutic benefit for them they decline to participate any further. Looks like a win for respect for autonomy to me.<\/p>\n

The issue presumably is that too many people exiting the trial threatens its viability – but surely the answer here is more resources, or a larger\/longer study with more participants – rather than considering patients as obliged to participate in research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the heading of this article in the BBC news today. The article argues that too few patients are volunteering to participate in a particular research trial. […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[511,407],"tags":[7942],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-wtf","tag-research-ethics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}