Low Professional Engagement Hurts Trial Recruitment: Survey

A Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development survey says that poor doctor and nurse engagement is driving low patient recruitment for clinical trials. Survey results reported (purchase or subscription required) in the center’s Impact Report indicate that while doctors and nurses have a high familiarity and comfort level with clinical trials, they refer few patients, often citing limited time and information as primary reasons.

Tufts says it surveyed 2,000 doctors and nurses primarily in the U.S. and Europe. Between 40% and 50% of them reported being exposes to clinical research in medical and nursing school, and similar percentages had participated as clinical investigators or research coordinators.

Many of the doctors and nurses surveyed said they felt somewhat or very comfortable discussing the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial with patients and providing and discussing clinical trial information with patients.

Some 60% of doctors and 17% of nurses reported referring patients into clinical trials during the past year. However, the report says, doctors referred less than 0.2% of their annual patient volume, and nurses referred an even lower volume.

In addition to not having enough information and time to refer patients to clinical trials, doctors and nurses also said they were unsure where to refer patients and were concerned that a clinical trial may not be an appropriate healthcare option. “Contrary to a commonly held belief,” the report says, “only 9% of physicians and 2% of nurses said fear of losing patients drove their decision not to refer.”

The survey indicates that doctors in clinical practice were 2.7 times more likely to refer their patients into clinical trials than doctors in hospital-based settings. Also, European doctors were 8.5 times more likely to refer their patients than were their North American counterparts. Gender, race, and ethnicity were not significant predictors of referral behavior, although year of medical school graduation was a significant predictor, with more recent graduates less likely to refer than older colleagues.

A high share of both doctors and nurses reported remaining in contact with patients during the trial after referring them to a clinical trial. While nearly 30% of doctors and 45% of nurses reported never receiving initial or follow-up contact from investigative site staff following a referral, a higher percentage reported never receiving their patients’ clinical trial results.