Background: The national breast screening programme in the United Kingdom is under pressure due to workforce shortages and having been paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform how healthcare is delivered by improving care processes and patient outcomes. Research on the clinical and organisational benefits of artificial intelligence is still at an early stage, and numerous concerns have been raised around its implications, including patient safety, acceptance, and accountability for decisions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To systematically review published pretrial qualitative research studies and explore how their findings were used to inform recruitment and retention processes in full-scale trials.
Design: Qualitative evidence synthesis using thematic analysis.
Data Sources And Eligibility Criteria: We conducted a comprehensive search of databases; Dissertation Abstracts International, CINAHL, Embase, MEDLINE, Sociological Abstracts and PsycINFO.
Objective: To generate stakeholder informed evidence to support recommendations for trialists to implement the dissemination of results summaries to participants.
Design: A multiphase mixed-methods triangulation design involving Q-methodology, content analysis, focus groups and a coproduction workshop (the REporting Clinical trial results Appropriately to Participants project).
Setting: Phase III effectiveness trials.
Background And Aims: Patient and public involvement is increasingly common in trials, but its quality remains variable in a lot of settings. Many key decisions in trials involve numbers, but patients are rarely involved in those discussions. We aimed to understand patient and public partners' experiences and opinions regarding their involvement in numerical aspects of research and discuss and identify priorities, according to multiple stakeholders, around the most important numerical aspects in trials to involve patients and the public in.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAfter the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic took hold in the UK, the ActWELL trial team's plans to present the trial results to participants and other stakeholders had to change. Instead of face-face events, three online events were planned and hosted successfully. In this article, we describe the choices made in planning and organisation of the online events including things we would do differently if we were to do it again.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To determine the proportion of Phase III clinical trials given a favourable opinion by a research ethics committee in the UK that provided trial results to those who participated.
Design: Audit of records.
Setting: Phase III clinical trials registered on the UK's research permissions system (Integrated Research Application System) between the 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2017.
Background: Multicentre randomised trials provide some of the key evidence underpinning healthcare practice around the world. They are also hard work and generally expensive. Some of this work and expense are devoted to sites that fail to recruit as many participants as expected.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Our objective was to compare the cost effectiveness of stapled haemorrhoidopexy (SH) and traditional haemorrhoidectomy (TH) in the treatment of grade II-IV haemorrhoidal disease from the perspective of the UK national health service.
Methods: An economic evaluation was conducted alongside an open, two-arm, parallel-group, pragmatic, multicentre, randomised controlled trial conducted in several hospitals in the UK. Patients were randomised into either SH or TH surgery between January 2011 and August 2014 and were followed up for 24 months.
Background: Haemorrhoids are a benign anorectal condition and are highly prevalent in the UK population. Treatments involve clinic-based procedures and surgery. The surgical procedures available include stapled haemorrhoidopexy (SH) and traditional haemorrhoidectomy (TH), and over 25,000 operations are performed for haemorrhoids annually in the UK.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Two commonly performed surgical interventions are available for severe (grade II-IV) haemorrhoids; traditional excisional surgery and stapled haemorrhoidopexy. Uncertainty exists as to which is most effective. The eTHoS trial was designed to establish the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of stapled haemorrhoidopexy compared with traditional excisional surgery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The size and composition of the European Union healthcare workforce are key drivers of expenditure and performance; it now includes new health professions and enhanced roles for established professions. This project will systematically analyse how this has contributed to health service redesign, integration and performance in 9 European countries (Scotland, England, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Norway, and Turkey(i)). This paper describes the protocol for collection of survey data in 3 distinct care pathways, and sets it in the context of the wider programme.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Uncertainty exists regarding the best management of patients with degenerative tears of the rotator cuff.
Objective: To evaluate the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of arthroscopic and open rotator cuff repair in patients aged ≥ 50 years with degenerative rotator cuff tendon tears.
Design: Two parallel-group randomised controlled trial.
Objectives: To explore differences in mean costs (from a UK National Health Service perspective) and effects of pharmacist-led management of chronic pain in primary care evaluated in a pilot randomised controlled trial (RCT), and to estimate optimal sample size for a definitive RCT.
Design: Regression analysis of costs and effects, using intention-to-treat and expected value of sample information analysis (EVSI).
Setting: Six general practices: Grampian (3); East Anglia (3).
Background: Current interventions for haemorrhoidal disease include traditional haemorrhoidectomy (TH) and stapled haemorrhoidopexy (SH) surgery. However, uncertainty remains as to how they compare from a clinical, quality of life (QoL) and economic perspective. The study is therefore designed to determine whether SH is more effective and more cost-effective, compared with TH.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To compare the effectiveness of pharmacist medication review, with or without pharmacist prescribing, with standard care, for patients with chronic pain.
Design: An exploratory randomised controlled trial.
Setting: Six general practices with prescribing pharmacists in Grampian (3) and East Anglia (3).
© LitMetric 2025. All rights reserved.