Grant: Knowledge Synthesis Grant

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) determine the effect an intervention has on an outcome. These trials are accepted internationally as the gold standard for high quality evidence and this evidence is used to make decisions about healthcare. We are concerned that the outcomes chosen, and the tools used to measure these outcomes, are not clearly reported in RCTs. It seems that many of these measures may also not have been adequately evaluated prior to their use in RCTs. Therefore, tremendous expense, effort and resources are potentially not being used in the best way. We propose to conduct two systematic reviews to examine outcomes reporting in trials of adults and children. We hope that by describing the problem, researchers will be more careful in the selection and reporting of outcome measures, so that we can be more confident about the quality of the evidence provided by RCTs.