✅ Aversion to pragmatic randomised controlled trials: three survey experiments with clinicians and laypeople in the USA

Health

Objectives Pragmatic randomised controlled trials (pRCTs) are essential for determining the real-world safety and effectiveness of healthcare interventions. However, both laypeople and clinicians often demonstrate experiment aversion: preferring to implement either of two interventions for everyone rather than comparing them to determine which is best. We studied whether clinician and layperson views of pRCTs for COVID-19, as well as non-COVID-19, interventions became more positive during the pandemic, which increased both the urgency and public discussion of pRCTs. Design Randomised survey experiments. Setting Geisinger, a network of hospitals and clinics in central and northeastern Pennsylvania, USA; Amazon Mechanical Turk, a research participant platform used to recruit online participants residing across the USA.

BMJ     Sep 19, 2024