Volunteering for Clinical Research - HKU Faculty of Dentistry

What is Clinical Research?

Your Role in Advancing Health Through Research

Thank you for your interest in taking part in a clinical research study. Before we proceed to present the clinical research studies available for recruitment at the Faculty of Dentistry, we would like to provide you with a quick introduction to clinical research:

Research involving human participants aimed at generalizable knowledge about health, disease, or care, and this includes both interventional and observational designs. Clinical trials are interventional research studies that examine the safety and efficacy of new medicine, medical devices/procedures, behaviorial treatments, or other health-related actions.

Such research studies follow the ICH-GCP (Good Clinical Practice) guideline to safeguard the ethical and scientific quality standard of the research, to provide public assurance of human participants’ rights, safety and well-being.

All research studies must be reviewed and approved by an appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) or ethics committee to ensure the study’s design, conduct, record, and report are up to the required standard.

Patient Safety & Rights

Your participation in the clinical research study is completely voluntary, and you have the rights to withdraw from the study at any given time – but you should first consult with your study investigator about your decision to withdraw, and discuss your standard of care for your existing condition (if any) to ensure your health will be well taken care of.

Please take note that you should only be involved in ONE clinical interventional research study at a time, regardless of therapeutic area. This is to ensure your safety in case of any health emergencies, where your healthcare provider can single out the cause of your issue quickly – and to also rule out any harmful interactions between study treatments from happening.