Obtaining informed consent for cancer pain research: do patients with advanced cancer and patients with chronic pain have different concerns?

To explore the factors that patients with malignant and nonmalignant pain consider when deciding whether to enroll in pain research studies, determine whether their views are different, and determine whether willingness to enroll in research is associated with pain severity, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 80 patients (cancer pain: n = 40; chronic nonmalignant pain: n = 40). The risks and potential benefits that were important to patients with cancer were the same as those that were important to patients with chronic pain. Willingness to enroll in research was associated with pain severity (Spearman rho = 0.33; P = 0.041) in patients with chronic pain, but not in patients with cancer pain. Patients with cancer pain do not have different concerns than chronic pain patients do. Although chronic pain patients' willingness to enroll in research was related to pain severity and a desire for better pain management, cancer patients' willingness to enroll was not.