Cost-Related Motivations for Conducting Research: Participants Should Be Informed

• Published in: JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 311; no. 15; pp. 1491 - 1492
• Main Authors: Nayak, Rahul K, Pearson, Steven D, Miller, Franklin G
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Medical Association 16-04-2014
• Subjects: Antibodies, Monoclonal - therapeutic use; Clinical trials; Female; Health care expenditures; Humans; Informed consent; Macular degeneration; Macular Degeneration - drug therapy; Male; Quality of care; United States > US
• ISSN: 0098-7484; 1538-3598
• DOI: 10.1001/jama.2014.1821

Many groups in the US are concerned about the increasing cost of health services and have sought to reduce health care spending while maintaining the quality of care. A promising approach to this goal is to conduct more head-to-head clinical trials that compare the effectiveness of less expensive treatment options with that of more costly treatments. However, this type of research raises questions about how the purposes of the studies are presented to potential research participants. The federal regulations and ethical principles guiding clinical research support the position that investigators should include cost-based motivations as part of the informed consent process. Here, Nayal et al examine the Comparison of Age- Related Macular Degeneration Treatment Trials study as an example of a research investigation that was significantly motivated by the large cost difference between the treatment options.