High-Quality Randomized Controlled Trials in Pediatric Critical Care: A Survey of Barriers and Facilitators*

Objectives: High-quality, adequately powered, randomized controlled trials are needed to inform the care of critically ill children. Unfortunately, such evidence is not always available. Our objective was to identify barriers and facilitators of conducting high-quality randomized controlled trials in pediatric critical care, from the perspective of trialists in this field.
Design: Self-administered online survey. Respondents rated the importance of barriers and effectiveness of facilitators on seven-point scales.
Setting: Authors of 294 pediatric critical care randomized controlled trials (published 1986 to June 2015).
Subjects: One hundred sixteen researchers from 25 countries participated.
Interventions: None.
Measurements and Main Results: Respondents reported a median (Q1, Q3) of 21 years (15, 26 yr) of experience and 41 (36%) had authored more than one randomized controlled trial. More survey respondents, compared with nonrespondents, had published more than one trial (35% vs 26%; p = 0.002) and their trials were more often cited (median citations/yr, 2.4 vs 1.5; p

Source: Pediatric Critical Care Medicine - May 1, 2017 Category: Pediatrics Tags: Feature Article Source Type: research