Patients' Attitudes to Unproven Therapies in Treating COVID-19 Merit Evaluation

Patients’ attitudes to unproven therapies in treating Covid-19 merit evaluation

Since the outbreak of Covid-19, many randomized controlled trials have been launched to test the efficacy of promising treatments. These trials will offer great promise for future treatment. However, a public health emergency calls for a balance between gathering sound evidence and granting therapeutic access to promising trial drugs as widely as possible. In an electronic survey we found that 3.9% of the participants preferred to receive an unproven trial drug directly in the hypothetical scenario of mild Covid-19 infection. This percentage increased drastically to 31.1% and 54.2% in the hypothetical scenario of severe and extremely severe infection, respectively. Our survey indicates a likelihood of substantial receptivity of trial drug among actual patients in severe conditions. From the perspective of deontological ethics, a trial can only be approved when potential benefits of the investigational treatment are presumed to outweigh risks, so compassionate or off-label use of investigational therapies merits evaluation.

Cite this article

Li, H.-t., Cheng, Z.-h., Huang, Y.-y., Lv, X.-l., Zhou, Y.-b., Dong, E. and Liu, J.-m. Patients' Attitudes to Unproven Therapies in Treating COVID-19 Merit Evaluation. The Innovation 1 (2), 100028 (2020). doi: 10.1016/j.xinn.2020.100028