The Need To Recruit Better: Understanding The Barriers That Keep Patients From Participating In Clinical Trials

Much has been written and discussed concerning the challenges around enrolling enough patients in clinical trials. Poor recruitment and insufficient enrollment stretch study timelines, add costs and can cause studies to fail outright before they can even begin, with 55% of terminated trials due to low enrollment and 80% of trials requiring timeline extensions or the addition of new study sites in order to enroll enough patients.¹ Concerns around timelines and cost certainly make sense, but to gain real insights into how to improve recruitment in clinical trials, the industry must think outside these business-specific concerns and begin looking at these problems through the eyes of the patients.

Some formidable barriers exist that work to keep eligible and interested patients out of clinical trials. By understanding these barriers, we can begin the necessary work to remove them.