FAQs
We all have questions about clinical trials, especially: ‘Is this the one for me?’ Our resources provide straight answers to your common queries, helping you see if a study meets your needs.
Clinical Trials — Common Questions
What are Clinical
Trials?
Why are clinical trials necessary?
When you participate in a clinical trial, you become part of something bigger—a collaborative effort to improve healthcare for everyone. Together, we discover new treatments, compare them to current options, and carefully monitor how they work in real people like you.
What are the aims of clinical trials?
Every clinical trial has meaningful goals that directly impact people’s lives:
- Discovering if new treatments are both safe and effective
- Finding the optimal medication dosage for the best results
- Understanding potential side effects to better prepare patients
- Determining if new approaches offer advantages over current care
- Ultimately, improving quality of life for people living with health conditions
What is the difference between a clinical trial and a research study?
Think of a clinical trial as a special kind of research partnership between medical professionals and volunteers like you. Unlike laboratory experiments or observational studies, clinical trials involve people actively testing new treatments together with healthcare teams to see how they work in real life.
Can you give me an example of a clinical trial?
Consider Maria, who lives with asthma. When she joined a clinical trial, she helped researchers compare a promising new treatment to standard inhalers. Her participation provided vital insights into which approach better controlled real-world asthma symptoms—information that could eventually help thousands of people breathe easier.
What's the difference between a clinical trial and a study?
A clinical trial is a type of study, but not all studies are clinical trials. Clinical trials always involve testing treatments on people.
What is an investigational drug?
When we say ‘investigational drug,’ we’re talking about a new medicine that’s still in its journey toward approval. It shows promise in early research, but needs partners like you to help determine if it’s truly safe and effective for wider use.
What is patient empowerment?
Patient empowerment means giving you the information and support you need to make decisions about your healthcare, including whether or not to join a clinical trial.
Taking Part in
a Clinical Trial
Who can participate in a clinical trial?
Every clinical trial has specific eligibility criteria—think of them as guidelines that help match the right people with the right research opportunity. These might relate to your age, condition, overall health, or medical history. These guidelines aren’t about exclusion, but about ensuring your safety and helping the research provide clear, meaningful results.
Do I have to pay to be in a clinical trial?
Participating in a clinical trial comes with no cost to you for the treatments or tests involved—these are covered by the research team. In fact, many trials offer compensation for your time or reimbursement for travel and accommodation. (Just note that you may want to check potential tax implications of any payments received.)
What happens after a clinical trial ends?
After a clinical trial, you’ll still be checked on to see how you’re doing. Sometimes, you might even be able to keep getting the new treatment if it worked well for you.
What are the benefits and risks of taking part in a clinical trial?
When considering a clinical trial, it’s important to weigh both potential benefits and considerations:
Potential Benefits:
- Access to promising treatments before they’re widely available
- Receiving care from specialised medical teams who monitor you closely
- Contributing to advances that may help others with similar conditions in the future
- Often receiving more comprehensive health monitoring than in routine care
Important Considerations:
- As with any treatment, there’s no guarantee the investigational approach will work for you personally – Like established treatments, new therapies may have side effects
- Participation requires a commitment of your time for appointments and assessments
How do I find clinical trials that I may be eligible for?
You can find clinical trials by:
- Talking to your doctor.
- Searching online on websites like pRxEngage
- Looking at the websites of government health agencies or charities.
What is informed consent?
Informed consent means that before you join a clinical trial, the doctors will explain everything about it – what it’s for, what will happen, the possible benefits and risks. You can then decide if you want to take part.
What is a placebo?
A placebo is a dummy treatment that looks like the real treatment but doesn’t actually do anything. Sometimes, placebos are used in clinical trials to compare the effects of the new treatment to the effects of a placebo.
How Clinical Trials
Work
Who runs clinical trials?
A team of people work on clinical trials, including doctors, nurses, and scientists. They all have different jobs to make sure the trial is done correctly.
Who funds (pays for) clinical trials?
Clinical trials can be paid for by different groups, like companies that make medicine, the government, or charities.
How long do clinical trials last?
It depends. Some clinical trials can last a few months, while others can last many years. It depends on what the clinical trial is studying.
How do clinical trials work?
Clinical trials have a plan that they follow very carefully. This plan says who can join the trial, what treatments they will get, and how the results will be measured.
What happens during a clinical trial?
If you join a clinical trial, you might have regular appointments with the doctors, take the new treatment or a placebo, and have tests to monitor your health.
Safety and Ethics
of Clinical Trials
Are clinical trials safe?
Your safety is the absolute priority in every clinical trial. Before any trial begins, it undergoes rigorous review by independent ethics committees. Throughout the process, multiple safeguards and continuous monitoring ensure your wellbeing remains at the center of the research.
What are the ethical concerns with clinical trials?
Your rights and wellbeing are protected through several important ethical principles that guide every clinical trial:
- Respect for Your Autonomy: Through informed consent, we ensure you fully understand what participation involves before you make your decision. You’ll have time to ask questions, consult loved ones, and consider your options without pressure.
- Commitment to Your Wellbeing: Every trial is designed with a fundamental principle that potential benefits should outweigh potential risks.
- Fairness and Inclusivity: Trials are designed to be equitable, with benefits and burdens distributed fairly among diverse participants.
What are the potential disadvantages of clinical trials?
There are a few possible downsides to clinical trials:
- New treatments can sometimes have side effects.
- Clinical trials can take up a lot of time.
- There’s no guarantee that the new treatment will work.
What are adverse events?
Adverse events are any unwanted or bad things that happen to you during a clinical trial, whether or not they are caused by the treatment. This could be something like a headache or feeling sick.
What happens during a clinical trial?
If you join a clinical trial, you might have regular appointments with the doctors, take the new treatment or a placebo, and have tests to monitor your health.
pRxEngage — Platform Questions
How does pRxEngage ensure the quality of the trials it lists?
We only list trials that have regulatory and ethical approval, are publicly registered, and have undergone a patient-level clarity check. This means every study has been reviewed for scientific and ethical standards, listed on a recognised registry, and reviewed by patients for plain language and relevance.
How does pRxEngage work for patients who are searching for clinical trials?
Patients can search by condition or location, browse plain language study summaries, and answer short assessments that help highlight trials that may fit both their medical situation and lifestyle. If a patient finds a study of interest, they can save it, share it with their doctor or request more information. pRxEngage itself does not enrol patients; it connects people to clear information and gives them control over next steps.
What happens to the personal data shared with pRxEngage?
Privacy is central. We only collect the information needed to help match patients to relevant studies, store it securely and never sell it. Information is only shared with research sites if a patient chooses to apply for a study and gives permission. Patients can request deletion of their information at any time.
How does pRxEngage support people who may not have a confirmed diagnosis?
Some patients or families may be exploring trials while still seeking clarity on their condition. pRxEngage requires some basic disease understanding to make relevant matches, but it can still help patients find information and explore options. In some cases, the platform’s scope may be limited by the level of diagnostic information available.
How often is the trial information updated on pRxEngage?
Information is retrieved from public registries such as ClinicalTrials.gov and refreshed monthly. For commercially supported studies, patient information sheets and eligibility criteria may also be processed to create clearer summaries.
Does pRxEngage comply with privacy regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR?
Yes. pRxEngage aligns with HIPAA, GDPR and local privacy requirements. Patients retain full control of their information and can review our data protection position statement for more details.
How does pRxEngage use AI?
AI is used to generate plain language summaries from publicly available registry data and, for some studies, to process eligibility criteria and patient information sheets. Uploaded documents are stored for 30 days or less and then deleted. Our AI usage follows established regulatory frameworks and ethical guidelines.
How is pRxEngage different from other trial listing platforms?
Most platforms focus only on eligibility and location. pRxEngage combines medical suitability with behavioural science and mental fitness assessments to support informed decisions and better retention. Our commercial model is based on engagement, not just leads, aligning our success with patient follow-through.
Everyone deserves a say in healthcare’s future. pRxEngage helps you find your trial match, expanding access and giving you control to improve research for all.
