Trials and Tribulations

Citation

Hagen S & Williams B (2011) Trials and Tribulations. Public Service Review: UK Science and Technology, (4). http://www.publicservice.co.uk/article.asp?publication=UK%20Science%20and%20Technology&id=546&content_name=Health&article=18528

Abstract
First paragraph: In 1948, statistician and epidemiologist Austin Bradford Hill published the first randomised controlled trial (RCT) of a healthcare intervention. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, not only demonstrated the effectiveness of streptomycin as a treatment for tuberculosis but also launched what was to become the gold standard design for the assessment of healthcare interventions for coming decades. 60 years on, the success of such trials of pharmaceutical treatments has led to larger numbers of people living longer but now requiring a whole range of complex nursing and allied health professions' interventions to manage long-term conditions: interventions that cannot be held in the palm of a hand, placed in a bottle, or indeed be always easily defined. These consequences are posing novel challenges to the future of the RCT and the advancement of nursing and allied health professions' research. At the heart of this is a growing trade-off between methodological rigour and usefulness.

Journal
Public Service Review: UK Science and Technology, Issue 4