What Are Common Risks in Clinical Trials?

Clinical trials are important to test new medicines, treatments, or devices for safety and effectiveness. But, they come with certain risks. People often get frightened after listening to the risks associated with the trials and refuse to participate. 

However, knowing these risks can help people make informed decisions before joining a trial. Without understanding the risks and the arrangements made by the researchers to mitigate them, it’d be a senseless decision to react. In this post, we are listing a few common risks related to clinical trials that you must understand before participating. 

Risks In Clinical Drug Trials 

#1 - Health Risks 

In clinical trials, participants may try new treatments that have not been fully tested on humans before. These treatments can sometimes cause side effects. But that’s a rare thing and a commonly considered possibility to avoid any further issues. There can be no or very few side effects, which the prompt counter-treatment from the researchers can mitigate. Hence, there is nothing to worry about the side effects and other health risks. 

#2 - Effectiveness of the Treatment 

As the clinical trials are experimental studies, the researchers have no idea about the effectiveness of the medicines. Without understanding the effectiveness, the researchers have to approach everything cautiously. In the trials, the researchers keep a keen eye on the participants to identify if the medicines are effective or not. Even if it’s not effective, the researchers can administer the proper treatment to the participants to avoid side effects if any. 

#3 - Psychological Stress

Joining a clinical trial can sometimes cause stress. As the clinical trials are experiments, the participants can overthink and that triggers psychological stress. Uncertainty plays an important part in triggering this type of stress. Fortunately, the researchers take all the necessary steps to keep participants informed of every step taken in the trials. This reduces the emotional and psychological stress in the participants and they can participate without any issues.