Improving the design, conduct, analysis and reporting of external pilot and feasibility studies

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This research project fall's within the MRC research priorities aim 1 "Setting research priorities which are most likely to deliver improved health outcomes". The research project aims to improve the design, conduct and reporting of external pilot and feasibility studies. Randomised controlled trials provide the best evidence about the effectiveness (and harms) of health care interventions and are a crucially important part of the practice of evidence-based medicine and delivering improved health outcomes for patients. However, randomised trials are often expensive and complicated to run. Because of this, researchers frequently conduct pilot and feasibility studies in advance of randomised trials assessing effectiveness. These pilot and feasibility studies help them to understand whether the future randomised trial can be successfully carried out, whether they should proceed with it, and if so how. There is still a great deal of variability in the way pilot and feasibility studies are designed, conducted, and analysed, and quite a lot of uncertainty amongst the research community about how best to do this. The aims of this project are to address important uncertainties in design, conduct, analysis and reporting of external pilot and feasibility studies.