Significant disparities in healthcare among African-Americans are still prevalent in the U.S. with black patients having a higher incidence of common chronic diseases (heart disease, cancer and strokes), die at a higher rate, and lose more years of life as a result of the conditions. One area where the healthcare gap is particularly prevalent is clinical trial participation, with 1% of trial participants identifying as black despite a comprehensive meta-analysis including 70,000 subjects indicating that minority patients are just as willing to participate in medical trials as non-Hispanic White patients. Mistrust of the medical community and a long history of malpractice in experiments on minorities (i.e. Tuskegee Syphilis experiments, Vertus Hardiman case, and the Henrietta Lacks cases for example) could easily be used as justification of this mistrust, however several studies have shown that while African Americans are aware of the past abuse, awareness of those events does not significantly affect attitude toward participation. A structural model utilizing Ajzen and Fishbein's Theory of Planned Behavior was used in an attempt to explain the inconsistency between the positive attitudes of minority patients regarding participation in clinical trials and the distinct lack of actual participation. The model included measures of attitude, social norms, control and difficulty as functions of behavioral intention to participate in clinical trials and multiple-group structural equation modeling analysis of survey data from 117 black and 457 white participants was used to test group differences. Despite strong loadings on intentions by attitude, based on the structural model it cannot be concluded that the TPB model predicts intentions to participate well for this sample. None of the other constructs had any meaningful effect on intentions, indicating the TPB model does not work well for this sample. Moreover, due to insignificant loadings by social norms, control, and difficulty, it is impossible to distinguish any differences between groups on the constructs with the exception of attitude, which was not significantly different between groups. This study confirmed previous research that showed similar attitudes toward participating in clinical trials by black and white participants and did not find any evidence for including other constructs in future recruiting efforts. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2015. / July 14, 2015. / African-American, Behavioral Intentions, Clinical Trials, Cross-Cultural, Structural Equation Modeling, Theory of Planned Behavior / Includes bibliographical references. / Jay Rayburn, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Hartline, University Representative; Davis Houck, Committee Member; Felipe Korzenny, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_253073 |
| Contributors | Frady, David Michael (authoraut), Rayburn, Jay D. (professor directing dissertation), Hartline, Michael D. (university representative), Houck, Davis W. (committee member), Korzenny, Felipe (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Communication and Information (degree granting college), School of Communication (degree granting department) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource (94 pages), computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
Page generated in 0.0015 seconds