What Makes Patients Join a Clinical Trial?

What factors influence patient participation ina free asthma self-management program? Todetermine what criteria are most important forenrollment, Belgian researchers interviewed 107outpatients with asthma about their intention tojoin a program. The patients also completedquestionnaires.

Of the participants, 59% reported that theyplanned to enroll. The researchers found that hospitalizationor severity of the disease had littleinfluence on the decision. The patients who hadmore intense symptoms in the 2 weeks prior torecruitment appeared likely to participate, but thetrend was quite poor. The participants with no barriersto program attendance (eg, lack of time ortraveling distance) were almost 13 times morelikely to join. Another factor that predicted enrollmentwas the belief in personal benefits from theprogram, which increased the chances of participationby 8-fold. Higher educational levels andsocial pressure to improve individual asthma carealso were influential. (The findings were reportedrecently in Chest.)