01 Dec Overcoming barriers to enhance clinical trials

University of Missouri via Medical Xpress

Clinical trials are critical to the development and approval of medical treatments, whether those are drugs, vaccines or medical devices. It is challenging to recruit certain people for clinical trials for different reasons, and there are two groups who are of special interest in Missouri: Black Americans and people who live in rural areas. Access to health care is a dire problem for both groups of people.

Two new studies from the University of Missouri School of Journalism found that using social media posts with testimonials is the best way to recruit these individuals for medical trials—but with a few twists:

– Black Americans’ intentions to join clinical trials increased most when testimonials were shared by Black individuals and when those messages addressed psychological barriers to participation, such as distrust of physicians and researchers.

– Rural white men’s intentions to join clinical trials increased most when the messages included testimonials instead of leaving them out. Messages that talked about overcoming cognitive barriers, such as lack of knowledge about the value of clinical trials, also performed well among rural men. Read more …