Patients' experiences of the decision-making process for clinical trial participation.
Trine A Gregersen, Regner Birkelund, Maiken Wolderslund and 2 others
PMID 35212102WHAT IT FOUND
Patients with advanced cancer described trial decisions as driven by fear, hope and feeling they had no real choice.
They relied on physician expertise and saw nurses mainly for practical information.
Key findings
01Patients described trial participation as their only real option, and said no treatment felt like giving up on life.
02Most patients considered the physician the expert and relied on the physician's competence, while nurses were experienced as providing practical information.
03Patients experienced too much information as overwhelming, especially when consultations included unexpected talk about life and death.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The findings come from a small interview sample, so they should not be treated as a general pattern. Most participants were women, so the findings may reflect that imbalance. The interviews focused on the consultation, so nurses' role outside the consultation may be underrepresented.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that nurses were unimportant in trial decision-making. The study focused on patients' experiences of the consultation, and patients described nurses as providing practical information and, for some, valuable conversations about living with cancer.