Students’ understanding about clinical research and their willingness to participate in clinical trials

Drug development is a tedious process involving a huge amount of time and money. Clinical trials are the important part of the drug development process. In clinical trials, subject recruitment is challenging especially when recruiting the Generation Y (millennial) population group. This might be generational or due to few barriers. In the present research, in-class surveys were done in the College of Health and Human Services and the College of Business at Eastern Michigan University to determine whether an educational intervention impacts the willingness of Generation Y to participate in clinical research. This interventional group (active group or exposure group) was compared to a placebo group (without any educational intervention). In both treatment groups, the number of students who were willing to participate in clinical trials was \u3e 90%. This clearly indicates that the intervention used did not work, or it simply means that the students are willing to participate in clinical trials. Between Generation Y (n = 114) and the 35 years or older group (n = 2), far more of Generation Y, almost 98.3%, indicated that they were willing to participate in clinical research. This trend might be different if the sample size were similar. When asked “How knowledgeable are you about clinical research?” participants with science backgrounds clearly indicated more knowledge than non-science professions. Three quarters of participants said they have complete knowledge about clinical research, but upon further analysis it was seen that they answered incorrectly when asked what clinical research is. Therefore, further research is needed on these parameters with a better exposure of the treatment group and with equal sample size in both the comparing groups, since the number of participants older than 35 years in the present study was too limited to make any reliable conclusions