Unique perception of clinical trials by Korean cancer patients

BMC Cancer

Su Jin Lee²  Lee Chun Park¹  Jeeyun Lee²  Seonwoo Kim³  Moon Ki Choi²  Jung Yong Hong²  Sylvia Park²  Chi Hoon Maeng²  Wonjin Chang²  Young Saing Kim²  Se Hoon Park²  Joon Oh Park²  Ho Yeong Lim²  Won Ki Kang²  Young Suk Park² 

[1] Department of Internal Medicine, Kosin University Gospel Hospital, Busan, Korea

[2] Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, 50 Irwon-dong Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 135-710, Korea

[3] Biostatistics team, Samsung Biomedical Research Institute, Samsung Medical Center, Seoul, Korea

关键词: Awareness and willingness to participate;    Survey;    Cancer clinical trial;   

Others  :  1080020
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2407-12-594

 received in 2012-07-29, accepted in 2012-11-26,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

In the past few years, the number of clinical trials has increased rapidly in East Asia, especially for gastric and hepatobiliary cancer that are prevalent in Asian populations. However, the actual degree of understanding or perceptions of clinical trials by cancer patients in East Asian countries have seldom been studied.

Methods

Between July 1^st and November 30^th of 2011, we conducted a prospective study to survey cancer patients regarding their awareness of, and willingness to participate in, a clinical trial. Patients with gastrointestinal/hepatobiliary cancer who visited the Hematology-Oncology outpatient clinic at Samsung Medical Center (SMC) were enrolled. A total of 21 questions were asked including four questions which used the Visual analogue scale (VAS) score.

Results

In this survey study, 1,000 patients were asked to participate and 675 patients consented to participate (67.5%). The awareness of clinical trials was substantially higher in patients who had a higher level of education (p<0.001), were married (p=0.004), and had a higher economic status (p=0.001). However, the willingness to participate in a clinical trial was not affected by the level of education or economic status of patients. The most influential factors for patient willingness to participate were a physician recommendation (n=181, 26.8%), limited treatment options (n=178, 26.4%), and expectations of effectiveness of new anti-cancer drugs (n=142, 21.0%). Patients with previous experience in clinical trials had a greater willingness to participate in clinical trials compared to patients without previous experience (p<0.001).

Conclusions

This large patient cohort survey study showed that Korean cancer patients are more aware of clinical trials, but awareness did not translate into willingness to participate.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Lee et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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