Extending CONSORT to include cluster trials
- 18 March 2004
- Vol. 328 (7441) , 654-655
- https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.328.7441.654
Abstract
Welcome extension will help to understand trials better and reduce bias Anyone who has tried to appraise a randomised controlled trial critically will be aware of the frustration that arises when a key piece of information is missing. To understand the results of a randomised controlled trial a reader must understand its design, conduct, analysis, and interpretation. That goal can be achieved only through complete transparency from authors. The original and revised CONSORT (consolidated standards of reporting trials) statements were designed to help authors improve reporting by using a checklist and flow diagram and have been well cited.1 These have now been extended to include cluster trials (p 702).2 Cluster trials randomise interventions to groups of patients rather than to individual patients and have their own problems. Using the extended CONSORT statement should help reduce bias and help readers to understand a cluster trial's conduct and to assess thevalidity of its …Keywords
This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:
- CONSORT statement: extension to cluster randomised trialsBMJ, 2004
- Lessons for cluster randomized trials in the twenty-first century: a systematic review of trials in primary careClinical Trials, 2004
- Evidence for risk of bias in cluster randomised trials: review of recent trials published in three general medical journalsBMJ, 2003
- The CONSORT statement: revised recommendations for improving the quality of reports of parallel-group randomised trialsThe Lancet, 2001
- Randomised controlled trial of patient centred care of diabetes in general practice: impact on current wellbeing and future disease riskBMJ, 1998