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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
Volume 12 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1499237
This article is part of the Research Topic Burnout, Wellbeing and Resilience of Healthcare Workers in the Post-COVID World View all 11 articles
Investigation on the Occupational Situation of Clinical Research Associates in China
Provisionally accepted- West China School of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
Clinical research associates (CRAs) are the sponsor's representatives, monitor the process and quality of clinical trials, their professional quality can affect the quality of clinical trials. But there is a conflict between the large number of CRAs personnel and unsatisfactory quality of clinical trial monitoring, and the reason is unknown. Therefore, our study investigated the occupational status of CRAs through a questionnaire survey. A total of 401 eligible questionnaires were included in the final analysis. Of whom, 71.32% were females, the average age is 27.86 years (range:22-46 years) , 95.01% had a bachelor's degree or above, and 60% had a pharmaceutical major. 76.31% had month income of <20,000 Yuan RMB, and dissatisfied with their current salary level. Over 80% weekly working time more than 40 hours. 79.3% CRAs traveling for less than 7 days per month under the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic. 80% of them are satisfied with promotion channels and company training. Furthermore, Through the analysis of satisfaction differences, we found that CRAs with different educational backgrounds have significant differences in career satisfaction. It was suggested by more than 80% CRAs that the application materials for clinical trials should be unified nationwide and an ethical mutual recognition system. In conclusion, our study is the first large-scale survey of CRAs in China, the current professional situation of CRAs is considerable, but overall it still needs further improvement and enhancement, the monitoring difficulties faced by CRAs mainly come from hospitals, companies, and themselves.With the robust growth of clinical trials in China, hospitals and companies need to improve the professional quality and status of CRAs through a series of measures, further driving the improvement of clinical trial quality.
Keywords: clinical research associate, Clinical Trial, occupational situation, Monitoring, institution, research site Undergraduate
Received: 20 Sep 2024; Accepted: 08 Jan 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Can, Han, Ziqian and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jia Li, West China School of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
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