This article is part of the network’s archive of useful research information. This article is closed to new comments due to inactivity. We welcome new content which can be done by submitting an article for review or take part in discussions in an open topic or submit a blog post to take your discussions online.

 

Randomised controlled trials are the gold standard of health research evidence. In this design, participants are randomised to receive either the intervention being assessed, or a control condition (which may be the standard of care). Tension often exists between people wanting to use a new intervention, and the scientists who are generating evidence through a controlled evaluation study.

One way that has emerged to balance this is the stepped wedge randomised controlled trial design. In this approach, the participants are divided into groups or clusters, all of which will eventually get the intervention under study but this is done in a staggered or stepped way in which the order in which, and the time point at which, each cluster or group gets the intervention is randomised.

This type of design is growing in popularity, and there have been recent calls to standardise the way in which these trials are designed and reported. To this end, the Trials journal has recently published a series of papers that deals with this research design specifically. You can access this series here.

This series includes the following topics:

What are your thoughts? Is this a valuable and useful research design? Do you have examples of interventions that are best suited to this approach? Have you been involved in a stepped wedge randomised trial? We would love to hear from you, and share your experience.

Also By

The Editorial Team

Categories

Trial Design  Data Management and Statistics  Global Health Research Ethics  

Tags

Archive