OU students often opt to volunteer as human subjects in medical research studies.
When students volunteer to participate in an Ohio University research study, they could be helping with the next step forward in health care.
Throughout the year, students may have received several emails or seen advertisements asking for their help in medical studies focused on issues such as back pain or diabetes.
Those studies are an important part of research conducted by faculty from Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine to help them learn more about the human body.
“There are some things you can do in a test tube and some things you can test in animals, but you can only interpret those so far,” said Laura Rush, executive director of OU’s Clinical and Translational Research Unit. “There are thousands of human subject clinical trials that go on everyday, and that’s how health care moves forward.”
Researchers are in the process of recruiting participants for two studies focusing on back pain, called RELIEF and BEND. Both allow students to participate as long as they are at least 18 years old and have lower back pain.
“I’m not worried about the specifics of our human subjects,” said Brian Clark, a professor of physiology and neuroscience who is conducting the studies. “Our approach is to find individuals to meet our study criteria, and we’re grateful for any participants.”
Clark said reasons why a person might participate in a clinical study vary.
“It ranges from altruism to compensation,” he said. “In some cases, the direct benefit may not be anything, but for someone that has cancer, a new treatment in development provides an opportunity.”
Graduate student Deshaun Darlington participated in the RELIEF study to try and help alleviate her back pain.
“I was having back problems, and I was doing physical therapy in Jamaica before I ended up coming here,” Darlington said. “Once I started playing volleyball again with the jumping and landing, mine started, and I saw the email and thought, ‘Just let me try it.’ ”
Recruitment methods depend on the study and age group that the researcher is seeking, though the most common forms include emails and advertisements, Rush said.
“A different range of back problems were involved, and I think each person is unique, so it was a great study to try even if you had no clue as to what your back pain was or what caused it,” Darlington said. “Many people tried and it did help.”
Once people decide to be a part of a study, they have to undergo a screening process to make sure they fit all of the criteria, Rush said. For some studies, that can include making sure the pain level is not too high or low, but for others, it can be more specific if the subject must have a disease, such as diabetes.
Then, they have to go through a process called informed consent to make sure they know all the facts about the study.
“If a person’s going to participate in a clinical trial, they need to understand everything about it,” Rush said.
She added that a person could drop out of the study at any point in time if he or she no longer wants to participate.
Compensation for the studies varies depending on the length of the study, but participants in longer studies can make hundreds of dollars, Clark said.
“If it’s going to take weeks or months or years, you give them compensation for the amount of time they devote to you,” Rush said.
Clinical studies can be important for testing new medicines and procedures, but conducting these studies in a small town can present its own set of challenges.
“Finding participants can be a huge issue for us,” Clark said. “We’re doing three clinical studies on back pain, and that’s a lot for a town as small as Athens.”
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