Developing a reporting guideline for social and psychological intervention trials.
Understanding randomized controlled trials of complex social and psychological interventions requires a detailed description of the interventions tested and the methods used to evaluate them. However, randomized controlled trial reports often omit, or inadequately report, this information. Incomplete and inaccurate reporting hinders the optimal use of research, wastes resources, and fails to meet ethical obligations to research participants and consumers. We explain how reporting guidelines have improved the quality of reports in medicine, and describe the ongoing development of a new reporting guideline for randomized controlled trials: an extension of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials for social and psychological interventions. We invite readers to participate in the project by visiting our Web site, to help us reach the best-informed consensus on these guidelines ( http://tinyurl.com/consort-study ).
Paul Montgomery and Sean Grant are with Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Evan Mayo-Wilson is with Centre for Outcomes Research and Effectiveness, Research Department of Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology, University College London, London, UK. Sally Hopewell is with Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford. Geraldine Macdonald is with the Institute of Child Care Research, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK. David Moher is with the Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Centre for Practice-Changing Research, The Ottawa Hospital, Ottawa, Ontario.
Paul
P
Montgomery
Evan
E
Mayo-Wilson
Sally
S
Hopewell
Geraldine
G
Macdonald
David
D
Moher
Sean
S
Grant
D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D058028:Research Report / Q000592:standards*; D012917:Social Adjustment