CONSORT Study

A CONSORT Extension for Social and Psychological Interventions

This CONSORTExtension is a collaboration of the Centre for Evidence Based Intervention at the University of Oxford, the Centre for Outcomes Research and Effectiveness at University College London,and the Institute of Child Care Research at Queen’s University Belfast, in association with the CONSORT Group. This project is funded by a research grant from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Aim

To create an evidence-based guideline for reporting randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of social and psychological interventions.

Background

Social and psychological interventions aim to improve physical health, mental health, and associated social outcomes. These complex interventions are often found in disciplines such as criminology, education, psychology, public health, social work, and related fields.

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs)are widely used for evaluating social and psychological interventions. Understanding these RCTs requires detailed reports of the interventions tested and the methods used to evaluate them. However, trial reports often omit important information. Incomplete and inaccurate reports prevent readers from using research to greatest advantage, wasting resources and failing to meet ethical obligations to research participants and consumers.

The CONSORT Statement is a guideline widely used in medicine to help authors report RCTs. The original statement and later extensions have improved the quality of medical trial reporting, but there has been limited uptake in other fields.

Scientists who develop and evaluate social and psychological interventions need a reporting guideline that is appropriate for the trials that they conduct.

We are developing a CONSORT extension that will meet this need.

We invite you to get involved! Please complete the CONSORT-SPI Extension participant form.

You can also contact us via CONSORT.study@spi.ox.ac.uk

Project Executive:

Prof Geraldine Macdonald

Prof Susan Michie

Prof David Moher