Systematic Techniques for Assessing Recruitment to Trials (START): a programme to test recruitment interventions

测试新疗法的最好方法是在随机对照试验(RCT)中观察它们的效果。这意味着一些患者得到了治疗，一些患者没有得到治疗，不同组的结果进行了比较，看看治疗是否会带来更好的健康。尽管许多这样的试验都是在NHS进行的，但招募患者参加这些试验往往很困难，而且花费的时间比计划的要长。这意味着研究被推迟了，患者和专业人员无法从关于什么治疗效果最好的知识中受益。我们的目标是开发新的方法来帮助招募患者参加试验，并在NHS正在进行的随机对照试验中对他们进行测试。为了实现这一目标，我们将做三件事：(A)我们将通过查看全球已发表的工作并探索不同的统计问题，开发帮助我们测试招募方法的方法；(B)我们将开发新方法来帮助患者参与试验，例如向患者提供信息的新方法，以帮助他们了解随机对照试验；(C)我们将与在初级保健和社区环境中进行试验的研究人员合作，帮助他们在患者中使用我们的新患者信息。我们将从这些试验中收集数据，并测试我们的新方法是否提高了招聘率。除了测试我们的新方法外，我们希望我们的工作将帮助我们了解如何最好地在试验中测试招募方法，并将鼓励未来的研究人员参与此类测试。这将有助于NHS进行研究，并利用这些知识来改善患者的健康和福祉。

The best way to test new treatments is to see how well they work in a randomised controlled trial (RCT). This means some patients get the treatment and some do not, and the results of the different groups are compared to see if the treatment leads to better health. Although many trials like this are run in the NHS, recruiting patients to these trials is often difficult and takes longer than planned. This means that research is delayed and that patients and professionals cannot benefit from the knowledge about what treatments work best. Our aim is to develop new ways of helping to recruit patients to trials, and to test them in randomised controlled trials that are ongoing in the NHS. To achieve this, we will do three things:(a) We will develop methods to help us test recruitment methods, by looking at the published work worldwide and exploring different statistical issues(b) We will develop new methods to help patients take part in trials, such as new ways of providing information to patients to help them understand randomised controlled trials(c) We will work with researchers who are running trials in primary care and community settings, helping them to use our new patient information with their patients. We will collect data from these trials and test whether our new methods improve recruitment ratesAs well as testing our new methods, we hope our work will help us to understand how best to test recruitment methods in trials, and will encourage researchers in the future to get involved in such testing. This will help the NHS to do research and use the knowledge to improve the health and well being of patients.