Competing commitments in clinical trials

Abstract

Most discussion about clinical care in clinical trials has concerned whether subjects’ care may be compromised by research procedures. The possibility that clinical researchers might give priority to helping their “patients” even if that required deviating from the imperatives of the research protocol largely has been ignored. We conducted an on-line survey with clinical researchers, including physicians, research nurses and other research staff, to assess the ways and frequency with which clinical trials may be at risk for being compromised by clinical researchers’ attempting to address the clinical needs of subjects. The survey covered recruitment, clinical management while in the trial, and termination decisions. It produced a 72.0% response rate. Over 20% of respondents agreed that researchers should deviate from the protocol to improve subjects’ care; 28% reported that medications restricted by the protocol were given; 21% reported that subjects who were not eligible had been recruited; and 9% said subjects had been retained in a trial despite meeting termination criteria. Some respondents reported that these deviations from the protocol happened many times. The ramifications of these findings are discussed.