Investigation of Post-Pandemic Patient Perception toward Clinical Trials

ABSTRACT

Background/Objective: The objective of this poster was to understand patient perception about clinical trial participation after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many believe that the widely publicized production of vaccines has influenced patient perception, and we aimed to understand any other factors that impact whether patients go through with a clinical trial after prescreening. Using the patient database at Princeton Medical Institute, we emailed a survey to 689 patients who screened for either psychiatric or neurologic trials. Design(s) We designed three surveys one for patients with neurologic disorders, one for neurologic caregivers, and one for patients with psychiatric disorders, namely major depressive disorder (MDD), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), binge eating disorder (BED), social anxiety disorder, and smoking cessation. For data analysis, we received 55 complete responses that we analyzed to understand patient impressions about trusting medications on the market compared to study drugs, willingness to join trials after hearing about the pandemic, and telehealth appointments. Result(s) One result that stood out was that 85.5 percent of all respondents reported that increased awareness of COVID-19 vaccine development did not change their willingness to join our trials. Additionally, we learned that younger patients in the psychiatric population preferred telehealth appointments (82%) over older patients in the neurologic population (40%). Conclusion(s) The main reason for these results is the convenience that telehealth provides by eliminating challenging factors, such as transportation and scheduling. Future research can build on these findings by using a stronger sample size that captures all patient viewpoints on participating in clinical trials.