Prostate Cancer Trial - Essay Example

The purpose of this paper is to recapitulate all the challenges associated with randomizing and recruiting African American men and other minority partakers for prostate cancer trial, factors affecting these test trials, and problems in doing this research in a specific cultural group. The article chosen for this paper is about African American men. The name of the article is ‘Strategies for Recruiting African American Men into Prostate Cancer Screening Studies’ and it has been written by Jones, Steeves, and Williams. This cultural group (i.e. African American men) has been selected due to the fact that Prostate cancer rate in African American men is higher than any other men in the United States of America; moreover the death rate for African American from prostate cancer is 73 per 100,000 as compared to white men which is 30 per 100,000. The article states that the occurrence of prostate cancer is two times higher in African American men who are three times more expected to die from this atrocious disease (Strax, 2006). This shows that African American men are over–effected by this disease, so the call for action is chiefly addressed to them in this paper. The study is unusual because it has recruited people from a specific culture or society/community, and not from a hospital setting. There is a major need for the position of enhanced research recruitment strategies to get hold on sufficient health data from this weak population. Minorities can be recruited successfully with planning and tactful communication. The literature review section of this article comprises of the work done by Coleman (1997) and Royal (2000) who depicted that the significance of this issue was mainly concerned to prostate cancer research as the increase in occurrence rate is obvious in the population of African American recruitment. Even though prostate cancer screening is quite successful at early discovery, screening process seemed to be quite disrespectful and moreover, it didn’t depict that prostate cancer screening decreases death rates in controlled medical trials. As a consequence, the U.S. preventive Services Task Force concluded that the proof is not enough to recommend for or against regular prostate cancer screening. However, screening offers the only opportunity for early discovery of prostate cancer, which is very important, mostly in high-risk individuals, such as African American men and persons with a first-degree family member who could be father or brother diagnosed from prostate cancer. Even though occurrence is high in African American men, a partial figure of these men is registered in Research in this article which shows that several major barriers exist during recruitment, but two major barriers are exceptional to recruiting for medical trials. The first is the feeling in participants that they are being used for some sort of experiment which developed due to lack of trust. They should be made to believe that researchers are not doing the medical trials only for study but also due to their about the welfare of participants (Jones, Steeves, & Williams, 2009). Trust is the major issue coming in between research and trail tests taken from participants/victims. To be recruited, participants have to be convinced that they are individually more important than the information that the study will give in (Strax, 2003). The second barrier is that a “randomized” clinical trial is employed, which means that one group gets the trial treatment that is medicine, instructions, tools, or personal care, and the other does not get any of these. To take on participants, researchers have to deal in a straight line with the fact that a new cure that may have benefits will be pending from about half of the partakers. The best way to speak to the first half of the group that is being experimented on is through establishing trust in writing, that danger to the contributor will be told right away and personal wellbeing will always be more important than information gathering. According to the article, the best way to deal with the second problem is to use a crossover design, which means that the experimental treatment will not be withdrawn from any group; they will receive the treatment at different times. The benefit of being in the control group the first time is that if any danger appears during treatment in the first round, the control group will be out of danger from the risks. The benefit of being in the experimental group in the first round is that all the benefits of the treatment will be enjoyed by the contributors more rapidly (Jones, Steeves, Williams, 2009). After finding where most of the African Americans will be available, one place was selected and the recruitment strategy began through flyers, newspapers, and announcements on TV and radio; however in rural areas, direct interaction was required to build up a trust worthy relationship. The strategy was focused on recruiting African American men into research on the meaning of prostate cancer screening. Increasing trusting relationships was significant since they not only gave direct access to potential contributors who came into those places but also formed potential relationships with them for future concern. In the study as stated in the article, it was also noticed that word of mouth was the most important and effective strategy as compared to others; it is similar to snow ball sampling, in which information is provided to few people and these people become source of information for others who meets the eligibility criteria. In the end the result was that 17 African American men were registered from rural Central Virginia. Recruiting strategies were besieged on places where African American men usually are available but are not often used for recruitment, e.g. barbershops, community health centers, and churches. Word of mouth was also found useful, and most of the contributors were reached through this method. The summary of the article “Strategies for Recruiting African American Men into Prostate Cancer Screening Studies” by Jones, Steeves, & Williams (2009) could be concluded by stating that education and early ages discovery through local community institutions, such as the church, can catch the attention of African American men to prostate cancer screenings. It can also help them to remove the barriers that have resulted in under-representation of this high-risk population in other early-detection hard work. Also it is proposed that a long-term point of view is required for successful recruitment of minority participants in clinical trials. Similarly, wide-ranging minority recruitment efforts must be ready to execute at trial opening (Powell, Gelfand, Parzuchowski, & Franklin, 2006). During recruitment, the cultural sensitivity and social norms of a specific group should be kept in mind because it is imperative to know about the population being recruited for the study. Word of mouth is an important strategy which builds trust and relationship between the victim and study takers. By using the strategies discussed, these strategies have potential to lead to a satisfactory sample size in bigger surveys. Investigators should take into consideration the population, geographical location, norms, culture and the overall community members’ previous interactions with research opportunities where the study is being carried out to conclude the strategies that are suitable. On the other hand, the essentials of these strategies develop trusting community relationships, to use multiple recruitment strategies, and to use alternative methods are heart to the success in recruiting study of contributors or participants (Jones, Steeves, Williams, 2009). References Isaac J. Powell, Donald E. Gelfand, Jeanne Parzuchowski, Heilbrun L. Franklin. A, Detroit, Michigan, (2006). “A successful recruitment process of African American men for early detection of prostate cancer” Jones, Randy A, Steeves, Richard, Williams, Ishan (2009), “Strategies for Recruiting African American Men Into Prostate Cancer Screening Studies.” Journal of eastern nursing research society and western institute of nursing Strax. J, (2006), www.psa-rising.com: “Health Disparities in Prostate Cancer Stem from Lack of Care, Not Lack of Knowledge” viewed on 7th may.2010, from: http://psa-rising.com/prostatecancer/african-american-care-disparity07.htm Strax. J, (2003), www.psa-rising.com: “Making Scientific Progress, Docs Try to Build Trust for Medical Advances” viewed on 8th may.2010, from: http://www.psa-rising.com/med/african-am/umichigan_gene_72003.shtml Read More