Understanding the dual role of clinician-scientists in cancer clinical trials: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objectives: This scoping review explores healthcare professionals’ experiences delivering cancer-related clinical trials, including how ‘research’ and ‘clinical practice’ activities interact and/or interfere with trial delivery and patient care. Introduction: Clinical trial research is essential for advancing the quality of care delivered to cancer patients. Healthcare professionals are the main point of contact for patients participating in a trial and play a critical role in trial conception/design, recruitment, informed consent, intervention delivery, and/or monitoring patient outcomes, whilst concurrently providing good clinical practice. Barriers to undertaking trial research are well documented at patient- and systems-levels, yet little is known about how clinical trial research impacts healthcare professionals. Inclusion criteria: This review will consider articles that meet the following criteria: (1) includes any healthcare professional involved in the delivery of a cancer-related clinical trial, (2) concepts of interest include experiences, attitudes or perceptions reported by healthcare professionals pertaining to trial delivery, and (3) context is within or in relation to the hospital setting. Study sources must be published in a peer-reviewed journal from 2000-present and be English-based or translated. Methods: The search will be conducted in Embase (OVID) and PubMED (MEDLINE) databases. The lead reviewer will screen all articles, while a second reviewer will screen a selection (~20%) of titles/abstracts, and full texts. Study characteristics will be extracted using a data extraction table, and qualitative data will be thematically analysed (via NVivo 14) using a mixed inductive/deductive process informed by implementation science frameworks. Keywords: Clinical trials, oncology, implementation science, clinician-researcher, health-care deliver