ArticleSupportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer2025
Stakeholder perspectives on the role of caregivers in cancer clinical trial decision-making: results of a qualitative study.
Article in Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Increasing Diversity in Head and Neck Cancer Clinical Trials.Current treatment options in oncology · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeFamily caregivers assist cancer patients in making medical decisions, yet their roles in clinical trial decisions remain understudied. This study aimed to determine how caregivers participate in clinical trial decisions from the perspectives of both caregivers and research staff.
methodsFamily caregivers of patients offered participation in a clinical trial and clinical trial staff were recruited for focus groups and semi-structured interviews. Participants were asked about caregiver roles in clinical trial decisions and practices of staff to include caregivers during the informed consent process.
resultsQualitative analysis revealed these caregiver themes: promoting patient autonomy, influential factors, and burdens of participation. Themes specific to clinical trial staff included the following: caregiver role in decision, approaches to caregiver inclusion, caregiver utility to trial staff, and navigating challenging situations. Caregivers reported helping patients make better decisions without influencing them, while clinical trial staff viewed caregivers as highly influential. The hope for therapeutic benefit was a strong motivator for caregivers to support participation in the trial despite burdens they encountered. Clinical trial staff found caregivers to be useful in facilitating communication and adherence to the study protocol.
conclusionCaregivers should be included early in clinical trial discussions due to their key role in decision-making and facilitating adherence. Clinical trial staff would benefit from training on communication with caregivers and identifying support to alleviate caregiver burden. The cancer research community should explore ways to decrease caregiver burden when possible or provide compensation when caregivers sacrifice time and effort to facilitate clinical trial participation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.