Ghanaian citizens and biomedical science: Exploring individualistic and collectivist dimensions of the clinical trial participant

Clinical trials in Low and middle income countries (lmics) have the potential to provide many useful opportunities, but at the same time have the capacity to create problems for host communities and participants. A part of the problem is that many participants in lmics such as Ghana are considered vulnerable and at risk of being exploited based on their supposed desire to obtain personal benefit by becoming trial participants. Recent literature has suggested that motivations
for participation in research reflect an integration of individualistic and collectivist orientations, which has blurred the line between being concerned with achieving personal gains or contributing to a broader social good. In this paper we draw on the belief that motivations guiding trial participation and
the corresponding decision-making processes are mixed, and provide further context on how these orientation are arranged by participants against the backdrop of a Phase 1 anti-malarial vaccination trial in Ghana, West Africa.