Assessing the willingness to participate in future clinical trials.

Abstract

e18899 Background: Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson in Philadelphia, PA conducts a bi-annual survey to identify and describe their catchment area. Since patient participation is critical to the future of cancer clinical trials yet less than 6.3% of cancer patients participate nationally, the most recent survey included questions related to willingness to participate in future clinical trials. Survey items included the willingness to participate in future clinical trials and offer insight into reasons to and not to participate. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among adult residents in southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey from July 2022 to August 2022 and included 2,744 respondents. Survey questions were included to elucidate reasons for or against willingness to participate, cancer attitudes or beliefs, health literacy, and numeracy. Characteristics were summarized with frequency counts and percentages. Frequency counts were weighted. Weights were calculated by iteratively adjusting the marginal values of select demographic characteristics to match the population totals of each surveyed county based on population totals obtained from American Community Survey data. Results: The weighted sample represented the 3,889,048 residents of the catchment area. Survey respondents self-identified as Hispanic (9.3%), non-Hispanic (NH) White (57.8%), NH Black (19.0%), and NH Other (14.0%). Only 50.8% of the population expressed willingness to participate in a future clinical trial. Over 50% of Hispanics, NH Backs, and NH Whites were willing to participate in future trials (Table). Those who did were more likely to be married (51.4%) and NH White (61.1%), see table. When asked the reason for future participation the strongest response was the possibility of learning more about my health or medical condition (67.4%). The weakest reason was similar between both my family (12.4%) and my doctor (14.2%) who would want me to participate. The strongest reason against participation is “worry about experiencing side effects” (52.6%). Conclusions: The results shed light on the need to ask catchment members when designing recruitment methods. Future endeavors involving community engagement and education may improve willingness to participate. [Table: see text]