Call to Participate in Study of Women's Attitudes, and How to Find Clinical Trials for Your Condition

By Rachel Walden — March 12, 2008

The Ethnic Specific Midlife Women’s Attitudes Toward Physical Activity, or “eMAPA” study, is currently recruiting women to participate in an online survey to explore midlife women’s attitudes toward and participation in physical activity, and whether there are ethnic differences among women with regard to physical activity. The researchers’ long-term goals include developing a web-based physical activity promotion education program and providing culturally competent care for menopausal women.

You may participate if you are ages 40 to 60 years, do not have any mobility problems, can read and write English, have internet access, and your self-reported ethnic identity is Hispanic, or non-Hispanic White, African American, or Asian. The informed consent document is provided online, and you will have read this and to register in order to complete the survey. The study is funded through the National Institutes of Health and is being conducted by investigators at the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing.

So how do you find other clinical trials in which you might participate? In the U.S., ClinicalTrials.gov is a great place to start. From the home page, you can get to a simple search page in which you enter something like menopause AND Boston to find trials in your area and relevant to a condition for which you’d like to seek out trials.

There is also an advanced search with a lot of options you usually won’t need, but one nice feature is the ability to limit to “Open Studies” in the “Recruitment” menu – this makes sure your results only include trials that are still looking for participants. You can also choose to search only for studies that are funding by the National Institutes of Health and universities and organizations if you’d like to avoid industry-funded trials.

In your search results, you can click on the name of the study to view more information, including a detailed description, eligibility criteria, contacts and locations, and what the intervention (such as a drug given) will be for a given trial.

If you’re in Europe or elsewhere it can be a bit trickier, and there are other resources run by specific pharmaceutical companies, but if you have a question let me know in the comments and I’ll try to expand.

3 responses to “Call to Participate in Study of Women’s Attitudes, and How to Find Clinical Trials for Your Condition”

  1. I’m concerned that you have not suggested questions women should have answered before they consider enrolling in a clinical trial. Without asking those questions and being satisified with the answers, women who participate in clinical trials are doing so without informed consent. Being a trial participant is taking a risk; in my mind, far too grave a risk considering neither the participants nor the trialists can say just what those risks will be.

  2. Sis, that is a separate question, the answer to which may vary from trial to trial. Perhaps I’ll take it up in Wednesday’s post.

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