According to a recent Honesty & Ethics survey by Gallup, there are three resources that patients consistently turn to for health-related information: nurses, pharmacists and physicians. Pharmacists are not only highly trusted; they are also highly accessible. On average, American patients visit pharmacies at least five times more than they visit their doctors. This puts the pharmacist in an ideal position to provide patient education materials on a wide variety of health-related topics, including clinical research trials – a subject the general public knows little about. And it makes marketing to pharmacists an intelligent tactic for pharmaceutical companies.
While pharmaceutical companies have used newspaper, radio and TV ads to recruit patient participation in clinical research trials, the crowded spaces of traditional media channels may make future successes dependent upon their ability to maximize nontraditional approaches. Given the trust that patients have in pharmacists — and the frequency with which they see them — pharmacists could play a vital role in educating and engaging the public about clinical research trials.
In 2010, the Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation (CISCRP) conducted a study on public receptiveness to receiving clinical research trial information from pharmacists. The results were overwhelmingly positive: 80 percent of the 2,650 respondents said they would like to receive clinical research trial information from their pharmacists.
A follow-up study in 2012 was conducted to test the knowledge of and interest in clinical research trials after patients had received information from a pharmacist. Thirty-two pharmacists at different locations participated in displaying and/or distributing patient education materials about clinical research trials, and 487 patients were surveyed. Again, the results were positive: Patient confidence in and knowledge of clinical trials rose from 10 to 20 percent, and 6 out of 10 respondents reported they would be more likely to recommend clinical research trials to friends and family.
Patient education isn’t the only way pharmacists could help market pharmaceutical products, however. They could also play a vital role in the vetting process, due to their personal knowledge of patients’ medical histories. Additionally, community pharmacists could help pharmaceutical companies expand their reach to patients in remote areas who typically do not have access to such vital information. This could open doors not only for previously untapped patients but also for critical developments in disease research.
