Clinical trials and research - Getting involved in health research
- Introduction
- Types of research
- How research addresses what we don't know
- What are clinical trials?
- Different stages of trials
- About fair tests
- Getting involved in health research
- Joining a clinical trial
- Finding out about the results
- Why all research should be registered
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses
- How trials are regulated
- Ethics committees
- Data monitoring committees
- When things go wrong
- Sheilas-story
- 'The nurse made sure I understood the risks'
- 'I'm here because of women who took part in research'
- 'I thought it might help me or someone else'
- 'I want people to find better medicines'
- 'I can control my Parkinson's thanks to animal research'
- 'I'm lucky I found a trial that was so right for me'
Research isn't just for researchers. Patients and the public can be involved, too. New research can't lead to reliable findings unless the right patients agree to take part.
Clinical trials
Clinical trials are a type of health research that compare one treatment with another.
If you take part in a clinical trial, you may be one of the first people to benefit from a new treatment. However, it may turn out to be no better, or worse, than the standard treatment.
Read more about joining a trial.
Other health research
The public can also get involved in other types of health research. For some types of research, people are asked whether researchers may use personal information, in confidence, from their health records.
For other types of research, it isn't necessary for the researchers to know who the participants are, and they use data from patient information that's been made anonymous.
An organisation called INVOLVE suggests ways people can contribute to research without taking part in a trial. When the public is involved in the way research is commissioned and managed, it's more likely to produce results that can improve health and social care practice.
The James Lind Alliance
The James Lind Alliance is an organisation that aims to identify and prioritise unanswered questions that patients and clinicians agree are most important.
This helps ensure that those who fund health research are aware of what matters to patients and clinicians.
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