Clinical Trials Definition and Purpose

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Clinical Trials Definition—Everything You Need To Know About Clinical Trials

Each year, there are more and more clinical trials as well as people interested in enrolling. Clinical studies are incredibly useful as medical research dedicated to the treatment, prevention, diagnosis, etc. Another reason why people choose to participate in paid clinical trials for healthy volunteers is financial gain.

DoNotPay is here to explain what clinical trials are and how to enroll in them fast and easy, whether you’re driven by the desire to help with medical research or earn some money.

What Are Clinical Trials?

A clinical trial is an observation period dedicated to testing, monitoring, and studying a new drug, vaccine, medical device, etc. Volunteers and patients who enroll usually have the opportunity to earn money while the amount depends on the budget of the trial they choose to participate in.

Each trial has to have four successful phases for a drug to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

What’s the Difference Between a Clinical Study and a Clinical Trial?

A clinical study is a form of medical research aiming to add as much as possible to knowledge about a certain medical field or illness, whether through trials (interventional study) or observation (observational study).

A clinical trial—also known as an interventional study—is one of the two main types of clinical studies with the purpose of testing a specific intervention in the form of a drug, device, procedure, etc.

What’s the Purpose of Clinical Trials?

The primary goal of clinical trials is to find a better drug or drug combination for existing illnesses or to find a new drug for conditions that still don’t have a dedicated treatment. There are also other types of clinical trials that have different purposes.

Treatment clinical studies aim to find the best treatments for people who suffer from common and rare illnesses.

What To Keep in Mind When Enrolling in Clinical Trials?

One of the most important parts of each clinical trial is the protocol that includes the following info:

  • The reason behind the study
  • Who can participate
  • How many participants are needed
  • Date and time
  • Duration of the trial
  • Other details regarding a drug or medical device

After reading the protocol, you’ll know whether or not a certain clinical trial is suitable for you.

How Many Types of Clinical Research Are There?

To know which clinical studies or trials are the best fit for you, you should learn more about the most common clinical research types.

Treatment

This type of interventional clinical study involves patients who are looking for a better drug for their condition. Treatment is the primary purpose of clinical trials.

Prevention

Clinical studies dedicated to prevention involve healthy volunteers who want to prevent or lower the risk of developing certain diseases present in the family history.

Observation

The researchers observe volunteers to conclude how their lifestyle and habits influence their health.

Diagnostic

This type of clinical research is dedicated to improving the early diagnosis of an illness.

Device Feasibility

Volunteers in this type of clinical study test medical devices and give their opinions on the design, effectiveness, and functionality.

Clinical Trial Phases

To better understand treatment clinical trials, you should also be aware of its five phases and what each of them means.

Here’s an overview of the clinical trial phases and their characteristics:

Phase 0

Learning how a drug or medical device affects the human body

  • 10–15 people take a small dose of the new drug

Phase I

Finding the best dose of a drug and testing its safety

  • A few people get a small dose
  • Other patients get a higher dose of the same drug
  • The doctors monitor side effects

Phase II

Testing the safety of a drug even further. In this phase, doctors often test different combinations of drugs

  • A larger group of people
  • The doctors monitor if a drug or a new combination of drugs work

Phase III

Comparing the quality and side effects of a new drug to the ones already in use. Passing this phase is necessary for FDA approval

  • 100+ patients participate in this phase
  • All participants are randomly divided into groups—the control group takes the old medicine, and everyone else takes a new drug

Phase IV

Testing drugs approved by the FDA

  • Hundreds or even thousands of patients
  • The doctors monitor the long-lasting effects of a new drug in larger groups of people

It’s worth mentioning that most clinical trials end early—usually in phase I or II—either because a new drug doesn’t work or because the side-effects are too severe to continue the research.

What Are the Clinical Trial Outcomes?

Each clinical trial dedicated to treatment has four outcomes:

Positive

A new drug or treatment has better results than the standard treatment
Non-inferior

A new drug or treatment is the same as the standard one

Inconclusive

A new drug or treatment is neither better nor worse than the standard one
Negative

A new drug or treatment is worse than the standard one

DoNotPay Helps You Find Clinical Trials in a Few Clicks

If you’d like to find clinical trials that you could enroll in quickly and hassle-free, rely on DoNotPay’s handy feature. Thanks to the efficient matching algorithm and questions you answer, we will find clinical trials that fit your preferences regarding the location, compensation, etc.

Follow these steps to find a clinical trial that works for you:

  1. Open DoNotPay in a
  2. Click on Clinical Trials and Get Started
  3. Select the filters
  4. Choose the study you’re interested in
  5. Click on the Contact Now button

DoNotPay will send an email to the researchers of your chosen clinical trial, and they will contact you a few days after to guide you through the rest of the enrollment. You can change the filters whenever you want and adjust them to your needs, preferences, and area. That can be very useful if you change your location frequently but still want your “clinical trials near me” search to be effective.

Besides making the process of finding and applying for clinical research super simple and quick, DoNotPay also offers a bunch of other features that can help you organize and track each trial. Some of them are:

  • Text notifications about new studies in your preferred area
  • Bookmarking the studies and keeping an eye on the process
  • Sorting out the studies however you want—date, time, distance, etc.

What Are the Alternative Ways To Find Clinical Trials?

You can also browse clinical studies on the World Health Organization (WHO) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) websites.

Alternatives

What To Do

WHO

  1. Go to the Trial Search page
  2. Set up the filters
  3. Click on Search
  4. Choose one or multiple studies

NIH

  1. Go to the Clinical Trials page
  2. Choose one of the options for searching
  3. Complete the form

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