Awareness of clinical trial registration

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Prospective registration in a freely accessible public domain is mandatory for clinical trials. Little is known regarding awareness of clinical trial registration among the scientific community. AIMS: To assess awareness of clinical trial registration among participants attending a scientific meeting in Sri Lanka. METHODS: Knowledge of trial registration was assessed using a self-administered questionnaire. Results: Only 251 out of 714 participants (35.6%) returned completed valid questionnaires. Of them, 53.4% were males, 74.9% were below the age of 40 years, and 49% had less than 5 years of professional experience. Majority (56.6%) were currently involved in research. Registration was considered necessary for trial publication by 73.3%, for presentation of findings by 56.2%, and for ethics approval by 54.6%. Over 70% agreed that trials should be registered prospectively. Majority felt it was beneficial to have research findings freely accessible to other researchers (81.3%), clinicians (84.5%) and research participants (76.7%). Many agreed on the positive effects of trial registration - access to findings of all trials (61.4%), access to negative results (47.8%), preventing trial duplication (69.3%) and preventing multiple publications (70.1%). Increasing research workload (49.8%), additional restrictions on research (52.2%) and possibility of'intellectual theft' (56.2%) were seen as potential negative effects. Awareness of access to registration mechanisms for trials conducted in Sri Lanka (49%), and a Sri Lankan trial registry (31.5%) was poor. CONCLUSIONS: Awareness of clinical trial registration was satisfactory in some aspects, but several areas need improvement.