Date of Award

Spring 2022

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (BS)

Advisor(s)

Falguni Sen

Abstract

Low clinical trial participation rates continue to negatively impact the execution of applied research for the development of novel biopharmaceutical drugs and treatments. The dominant explanation for this trend can be attributed to a combination of practical and psychosocial factors considered by prospective trial participants. Previous research has shown such factors to include logistical inaccessibility, trial randomization, distrust of medical establishments, and most notably the use of placebo/control groups. However, the existing literature has not yet considered the potential effects of the application of blockchain technology within trials as a means of influencing the level of patient trust in trials. The main research question in our study is the following: what effect does the implementation of blockchain technology within clinical trials have on patients’ willingness to participate in clinical trials? Further, the goal is to study if willingness to participate increases, decreases, or has no effect. In this study, we use data acquired from an experimental, scenario-based study with a survey component along with the SPSS software to analyze results using a variety of independent sample t-tests and correlation matrices. In accordance with what has often been shown in the literature, patient data security is not one of the primary factors considered by prospective clinical trial participants when deciding whether or not to join a clinical trial. Our findings indicate that an increase in trial participants’ willingness to join a clinical trial cannot be explained by hypotheses centered on the implementation of blockchain technology within trials as a means of improving patient data security and as an extension, trust.

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