Aleta, I am involved in research as part of the planning and actual doing of the research, so I if there are questions you have, maybe I can answer them. The other thing you can do is go to the place where the research is being done and let them know you're interested. They'll take you through the entire process and you'll have opportunities to ask lots of questions. You haven't committed to anything until you've actually signed the consent to participate, and you have the right to quit at any time. Pretty much everything in the research process is designed to protect human subjects. Every research project has to submit every activity and piece of paper designed for patients to a Internal Review Board who has to approve it, so it's very unlikely that you would be harmed.

Yup; just got back from U of Iowa on Monday after doing a followup visit for a study on COPD and bone density. I'm also involved in the COPD Gene study. I don't qualify for most studies on meds because I haven't had an exacerbation in a long time.

Thinking about it

#aletacolte....I signed up for a study which would have lasted for 52 weeks, but I changed my mind because it was so time consuming.

thanks Jean for the information