Evaluating complementary medicine: methodological challenges of randomised controlled trials

Evaluating complementary medicine: methodological challenges of randomised controlled trials.

Methodological challenges designing pragmatic, multi-centre randomised controlled trials in critical care

Population Unlike many other clinical areas, patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) do not have easily identifiable diseases (e.g. diabetes or cancer), but are classified as having syndromes with hazy definitions that may be inconsistently applied both within and between centres. The definition and implementation of inclusion and exclusion criteria is therefore difficult, resulting in...

Methodological challenges and pragmatic design in randomised controlled trials comparing surgery and rehabilitation

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating surgery versus rehabilitation pose particular methodological and practical challenges. In addition to the differences in the interventions, factors associated with the differences in care pathways and fluctuating symptoms impact the feasibility of effectively running a trial in a hospital setting. FAIT is such a RCT comparing arthroscopy versus phy...

Evaluation of randomized controlled trials on complementary and alternative medicine.

OBJECTIVES Use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is growing in all Western countries. The goal of this study was to evaluate quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of CAM interventions for specific diagnoses to inform clinical decision making. METHODS MEDLINE and related databases were searched for CAM RCTs. Visual review was done of bibliographies, meta-analyses, and CA...

Review of randomised controlled trials of traditional Chinese medicine.

ined by male doctors. Thirty seven departments were more likely to offer chaperones during examinations of patients aged under 16. Only 20 respondents said that their hospital had a policy on chaperoning. Fourteen knew of allegations of impropriety concerning medical or nursing staff in their department during the preceding five years. In the opinion of half of these respondents, allegations co...