Coming from a background where customer experience methodology is used extensively to determine why people don’t like a particular product or service, it’s always intrigued me as to why there is no standard process in place for asking patients why they drop out of trials.

It’s possible this is based on an interpretation of the Declaration of Helsinki – that enshrines a trial participant’s right to withdraw from a trial at any point in the process.

However, I would suggest that’s a misinterpretation. The right to drop out of a trial at any point does not mean we can’t ask the person why they have done so.

Given that retaining patients on trials is probably the second biggest issue outside of recruiting them in the first place, I’d suggest that finding out why people drop out should provide valuable information for the design of future trials that have a better rate of retention.