Skip to main content

Table 7 Weak altruism

From: How informed is declared altruism in clinical trials? A qualitative interview study of patient decision-making about the QUEST trials (Quality of Life after Mastectomy and Breast Reconstruction)

[On randomisation and no preference] […] if you were suitable, you could be randomised, i.e. the computer would decide which operation you were having and the outcomes were both, I was explained that there were pros and cons to both and I was happy to have both of the surgeries and actually it was quite nice for me because I don’t think I could have decided […] obviously on the […] study makes it fairer. If they’d picked me to do something, it could’ve been for a reason, it could’ve been for something I said whereas letting a computer decide is completely random and it chooses what it likes based on nothing whatsoever.

Trial acceptor, full understanding of randomisation (participant 5)