Relationship between news media coverage of medical research and academic medical centers and people volunteering for clinical trials

In academic medical centers an untested assumption is that positive media attention aids recruitment of patients into a medical study while negative news reporting is damaging. In this study we examine associations between the amount of newspaper coverage concerning medical research and the number of people who volunteer, and the positive or negative content of the reporting. We find evidence that a positive relationship, though not statistically significant, exists between the volume of media coverage and volunteerism; a positive relationship exists between positive media coverage and volunteerism; and no existence of an inverse relationship between negative news coverage and volunteerism. These results lay a foundation for more in-depth exploration into the role news media play in this type of volunteerism.