Public awareness about clinical trials in Lithuania

Abstract

Introduction: Scientific literacy about clinical trials in the general population is limited, leading to misunderstanding of information associated with clinical trials. This can result in recruitment problems for participation in clinical trials, or prolonged duration of clinical trials execution [1, 2].Aims: The study aimed to analyze public awareness regarding clinical trials in Lithuania.Methods: The anonymous online survey was published in public online surveys page and was developed to collect public views about clinical trials. Calculated sample size was 384, responses were received from 448 (19-79 years) respondents (81.5% women and 18.5% men).Sociodemographic data, responses about clinical trials, and information sources were assessed. Descriptive and comparative statistics were calculated. A chi-square test was used to evaluate the relationship between responses and demographics. The study was approved by the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Bioethics Center.Results: The majority of participants (87.9%) indicated that they had heard of clinical trials. Of them 85.4% stated that clinical trials can be performed for food supplements and cosmetics, including 85.4% of respondents with higher university education. Of respondents, 18.3% men and 8.4% women (p<0.05) stated that clinical trials are not obligatory to apply for marketing authorization of medicinal product. More than half of the participants (59.4%) were not aware that minors could participate in clinical trials (54.5% with higher university education). Half of the respondents (54.7%) described social media, television, and newsletters as main information sources about clinical trials. Only 11.4% of the study participants mentioned general practitioners or physicians as relevant data source bout clinical trials and, 26.3% referred to scientific literature.Conclusion: There is insufficient public awareness of clinical trials in Lithuania. As media is the most effective way to reach the majority of people, it could be a beneficial tool to be used for public education. If public knowledge about clinical trials would be better, we could save time and other resources due to prolonged execution of clinical trials.