so i signed up for a study..

You know, I'd jump all over that. One dose more than likely won't make you feel a thing. Typically (if i remember my psych pharma right), patients have to take it for at least 2 weeks to begin to feel any difference.

Pretty cool!

 

You have to stay in the hospital for all four days? Kinda sucks

 

.

 

...yeah, radiation exposure should definitely be a slight concern with 5 PET scans. That seems a little excessive but I'm not the PI so

 

Sounds good. Besides the possible radiation overdose part. I am wondering how do you find out about these studies and then sign up for them? I would like to be a guinea pig for a couple bucks.

 

That seems like a low figure if you really have to stay at the hospital for several consecutive days and nights. The studies I've seen usually offer in the thousands of dollars range for that sort of commitment.

 

That's the first thing that struck me. I've been involved in research involving PET, and our subjects could participate at most once per 6 months. I'd double check that if I were you.

 

Through CampusPhilly I used to get periodic e-mails from Penn's medical research department about possible consultative studies. You had to stay at HUP/Presby/Penn Hosp for two or three nights for the trial. Some were pharmacological studies. Each one usually offered about $2000 to $2500 in compensation.

 

I'm doing a study on radiation exposure in diagnostic imaging. We're submitting to the IRB shortly. When I'm done, I'll let you know how long you have to live after this study.

 

You do know that radiation is cumulative right? Its not like you can just avoid it for a while and detox. For 350 bucks I wouldn't do it. If you were in your 40s or 50s then what the hell, but you have a lot of life left to live and god forbid you actually need a couple of CTs later on. Unless you like to glow, then you should go for it.

 

For that little amount of money and the possible side effects of radiation exposure, its not worth a lousy 350. If your worried about money just get a part time job. There are plenty out there that pay $8/hr. If you work for four days at 10 hours a day for $8 an hour you have made $320, not gotten exposed to any radiation (unless you stick your head in the microwave at some fast food job) and you can continue to do the job after the four day period and make even more money. That seems much smarter and easier on the body.

 

Run away. Fast!

 

Have you signed a consent form yet? The risk section of the consent for should spell out the amount of radiation and describe the amount in some lay language (e.g. it is the equivalent to the amount of radiation received in x transcontinental airplane flights or x days of background radiation).

 

The amount of compensation seems small considering the amount of time/risk you're taking. I'd probably jump on it though, as I really need the cash.

 

I'd actually look at the hard radiation exposure they expect you to have. I mean, Abilify in short one-time doses won't do much more to you than make you drowsy. The radiation exposure might be an issue, but if they can compare it to the amount of radiations in a CT it will be relatively easy to figure out if they're giving you too much ionizing radiation per day or not. I mean it is not just cumulative dose but also how much you're getting in a day. If i remember correctly (look it up don't trust me on this), it's like 5 individual CT scans per day is enough to increase risk.

BTW, as for compensation, $350 is more than $0. So better to be earning money with this than not earning money during that time period. Now just ask if the productive time that you're losing for the study is worth it. Maybe you alreayd have a part-time job that you can put in extra hours then. Or maybe this is only using 10 hours of your time and you're able to be productive while at the hospital.

 

The OP never stated that these would be PET-CT. A plain PET would be significantly less exposure. As LizzyM pointed out, the amount of total radiation exposure should be clearly stated in the consent form. The fact that an IRB approved this for healthy volunteers makes me think that the radiation exposure is likely small enough not present any significant harm, though no radiation exposure is better than any.

 

Aripiprazole separates from placebo by one week.

 

$350 is like minimum wage for the time you're spending at the hospital.

 

Minimum wage for what is essentially work that requires no specific skills is one model for determining what to pay research subjects.

See:

What's the Price of a Research Subject? Approaches to Payment for Research Participation
N. Dickert and C. Grady - New England Journal of Medicine, 15 July 1999

 

I don't have that article available at home but that's a crappy metric for any study that involves an element of risk like drug trials and so forth. Many of those pay a small fortune in wages for a few days, which is justifiable at least in part by the burden of exposure suffered by these participants.