Ready to start your clinical trial search? Whether you are a healthy volunteer or enrolling in a study for a specific condition, being a clinical trial participant can offer many benefits. It gives you the chance to be more involved in medical treatments, gain access to new therapies, and be part of medical breakthroughs in the future. By engaging in a trial, you’re playing an important role in providing much-needed research on how specific conditions and treatments affect Black Americans.
If you’ve started searching for clinical trials, you may find the process a bit overwhelming, and that’s completely understandable. You may also find it challenging to identify a clinical trial that is a good fit for you. If this sounds familiar, we’re here to help.
Here’s how to get the most out of your clinical trial search.
When looking for the perfect trial, a key make-or-break factor is its location. As you search for a trial, think about how many miles you’re willing to travel for a trial. It may also help to consider how often the trial occurs. If frequent visits aren’t required, you may be fine with traveling a distance. However, if visits are frequent, you may find it difficult to get to the trial location.
Some websites and matching tools — such as BlackDoctor’s Clinical Trials Resource Center and ClinicalTrials.gov — make it easy to filter trials by location. This allows you to see if there are sites within your preferred travel radius. These matching tools can also save you time by helping you determine whether you meet the eligibility requirements for a trial you are interested in, using algorithms and databases to match patient attributes, including age, gender, medical history, and current medications.
RELATED: 15 Questions to Ask Your Doctor About Clinical Trials
Clinical trials are separated into two types: interventional and observational. The former aims to learn more about a particular intervention (e.g., a drug, device, or behavioral change) and how it can affect health-related outcomes. In the latter, researchers do not assign participants to a treatment or other intervention. Instead, they observe participants or measure certain outcomes to assess health.
Both of these study types will receive a protocol. The protocol provides a detailed plan for the study written by the trial sponsor and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The trial phase may also play an important role in determining if a trial is right for you and if you will be accepted.
RELATED: The 4 Stages of Clinical Trials And What They Mean
After you have gone through all the steps listed above and found a trial you are interested in, it is helpful to understand the requirements. Every clinical trial is different, so the specific requirements of the trial you are interested in may vary from those of the next. In general, specific requirements typically relate to the number of site visits, mandatory medical procedures, and how patients must report on metrics throughout the study.
During the informed consent process, the research staff will go over these requirements with you and allow you to enroll or withdraw from the trial at any time.
Clinical trials are an opportunity to contribute to potentially life-changing treatment. Our community is heavily underrepresented in medical research, which ultimately affects our understanding of how certain drugs and treatments work in our bodies. While engaging in clinical trials may seem intimidating at first, know that you’ll be supported by a healthcare team that will ensure you feel comfortable throughout the process. Plus, the FDA and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) oversee clinical trials to ensure no harm is being done to participants, which may give you some peace of mind.
And if you decide to participate in a clinical trial and later decide that it’s not a good fit for you, you have the right to withdraw at any time without any pushback.
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