“It’s trying to manage the work” : A qualitative evaluation of recruitment processes within a UK multi-centre trial

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank all interviewees who agreed to take part in this study. The authors would like to thank the TISU Trial Group for their support with this project. In particular, the authors would like to thank Sarah Cameron (TISU Trial Manager) for her help in identifying and recruiting staff from the various TISU trial study sites. Funding ZCS was supported by a core grant from the CSO (reference CZU/3/3) and a Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund award (reference RG12724-18). KG was supported by an MRC Methodology Research Fellowship (MR/L01193X/1). Transcription costs were supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), HTA programme (TISU project number 10/137/01). The views and opinions expressed therein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the HTA programme, NIHR, National Health Service or the Department of Health.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Digital tools for trial recruitment and retention - Plenty of tools but rigorous evaluation is in short supply

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Protocols : more structure, less ‘Wuthering Heights’

Acknowledgements The Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, receives core funding from the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates. Funding Not applicable.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Learning from Cochrane systematic reviews: what improvements do these suggest for the design of trials?

Grant information: The study was funded by the Health Research Board (grant ‘Capacity Building for Evidence Synthesis – Evidence Synthesis Ireland 2018’) as part of Trial Forge (http://trialforge.org), a non-commercial research initiative led by ST. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Trial management- building the evidence base for decision-making

Acknowledgements Not applicable Funding Not applicablePeer reviewedPublisher PD

How much is the lack of retention evidence costing trial teams in Ireland and the UK?

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge those who provided information regarding the conduct of trials and retention strategies and the costs involved to make the assumptions regarding the conduct of retention strategies in clinical trials that we based the costing model on. Funding This work was supported by a grant from the Health Research Board, Ireland - HRB TMRN 2017-1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Studies within a trial priorities to improve the evidence to inform recruitment and retention practice in clinical trials

Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Trials Methodology Research Partnership (MR/S014357/1). The Health Services Research Unit, Institute of Applied Health Sciences (University of Aberdeen), is core-funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates. The funders had no involvement in study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, reporting or the decision to publish.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

­­­­Using evidence when planning for trial recruitment : An international perspective from time-poor trialists

Funding: This study was funded by the Chief Scientist Office of Scotland’s Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research Committee (project reference HIPS/16/07 - https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/outputs/cso-funded-research/hips16/). HRG was supported by a scholarship from Aberdeen Development Trust which funded her PhD fees and stipend, KG was supported by an MRC Methodology Research Fellowship (MR/L01193X/1), and ST was supported by core funding from the University of Aberdeen. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Why is so much clinical research ignored and what can we do about it?

Key points  Research evidence from clinical trials is not being translated into clinical practice in a timely manner and this represents an enormous waste of resources and missed opportunities.  Trials do not publish information about the context in which the intervention was implemented to allow the results to be transferred beyond the trial setting.  Health care professionals need contextual information to be able to make the judgement ‘will it work in my setting?’  The outcome detected in the trial could be the treatment, elements of the context, the research process or a combination of all three.  Context is recognised as important but there is poor conceptualisation and no agreed definition.  Funding into methodological research is urgently required to address this problem and to stop wasting up to 85% of research investment.Output Type: Editoria