Fact Sheet: Publishing in peer review journals: criteria for success

Publishing in peer review papers facilitates knowledge sharing, thereby enabling individuals and organisations to contribute to the body of evidence on best practice. The following criteria have been developed to increase the chances of your paper being published in a peer reviewed journal

Fact Sheet: Oral presentations: preparation and delivery

Presentations can be positive experiences. There are a few things you can do to ease the strain to ensure that your presentation runs smoothly. This resource has been prepared to assist you with the planning and delivery of your next paper presentation

Fact Sheet: Multimedia conference presentations

Designing a great multimedia presentation is an art in itself. We have put together a few guidelines you might like to keep in mind when you are creating your next presentation. You will find the following tips most relevant for 10 minute conference presentations. The step-by-step points are specific to Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

CONSORT to community: translation of an RCT to a large-scale community intervention and learnings from evaluation of the upscaled program

Abstract Background Translation encompasses the continuum from clinical efficacy to widespread adoption within the healthcare service and ultimately routine clinical practice. The Parenting, Eating and Activity for Child Health (PEACH™) program has previously demonstrated clinical effectiveness in the management of child obesity, and has been recently implemented as a large-scale community intervention in Queensland, Australia. This paper aims to describe the translation of the evaluation framework from a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to large-scale community intervention (PEACH™ QLD). Tensions between RCT paradigm and implementation research will be discussed along with lived evaluation challenges, responses to overcome these, and key learnings for future evaluation conducted at scale. Methods The translation of evaluation from PEACH™ RCT to the large-scale community intervention PEACH™ QLD is described. While the CONSORT Statement was used to report findings from two previous RCTs, the REAIM framework was more suitable for the evaluation of upscaled delivery of the PEACH™ program. Evaluation of PEACH™ QLD was undertaken during the project delivery period from 2013 to 2016. Results Experiential learnings from conducting the evaluation of PEACH™ QLD to the described evaluation framework are presented for the purposes of informing the future evaluation of upscaled programs. Evaluation changes in response to real-time changes in the delivery of the PEACH™ QLD Project were necessary at stages during the project term. Key evaluation challenges encountered included the collection of complete evaluation data from a diverse and geographically dispersed workforce and the systematic collection of process evaluation data in real time to support program changes during the project. Conclusions Evaluation of large-scale community interventions in the real world is challenging and divergent from RCTs which are rigourously evaluated within a more tightly-controlled clinical research setting. Constructs explored in an RCT are inadequate in describing the enablers and barriers of upscaled community program implementation. Methods for data collection, analysis and reporting also require consideration. We present a number of experiential reflections and suggestions for the successful evaluation of future upscaled community programs which are scarcely reported in the literature. Trials registration PEACH™ QLD was retrospectively registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry on 28 February 2017 (ACTRN12617000315314)

Randomised controlled trials in overweight children: practicalities and realities

Aim. To highlight and discuss the practical aspects of conducting high quality, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) with overweight and obese children and their families. Content. Realistic considerations and suggestions for researchers arising from the experiences of three Australian interventions in overweight/obese children are highlighted. The practical implications of key issues arising during this type of RCT include study design, obtaining ethical approval, choice of outcome measures, recruitment, working with families, impact and process evaluation, retention strategies, managing multi-site trials and data management. Conclusion. Interventions for overweight children and their families are challenging. Although there were some differences in the design and outcome measures among the three studies, there were many similarities. Multi-site trials, although more expensive than single-site trials, are advantageous in increasing sample size and external validity. Collectively we have developed strategies to address key problems in conducting RCTs, including the common challenges of recruitment, retention and working with families