Studies Within A Trial (SWATs): how they can help to make trial process decisions more evidence-based
Wednesday, 17 April 2019
5:00 – 6:00pm AEST
Professor Shaun Treweek, Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen
ACTA was delighted to be joined by international guest presenter Prof Shaun Treweek for this special webinar.
We are all aware that randomised trials are a central component of all evidence-informed health care systems and the evidence coming from them helps to support health care users, health professionals and others to make more informed decisions about treatment.
The evidence available to trialists to support decisions on design, conduct and reporting of randomised trials is, however, sparse.
One way to fill gaps in evidence is to run Studies Within A Trial, or SWATs. This webinar provides a brief definition of SWATs, an explanation of why they are important and some practical ‘top tips’ that come from existing experience of doing SWATs.
We hope the guidance will be useful to trialists, methodologists, funders, approvals agencies and others in making clear what a SWAT is, as well as what is involved in doing one.
He leads an initiative called Trial Forge that aims to be more systematic about how we identify, generate and use research evidence in making trial design, conduct, analysis and reporting decisions. Finally, Shaun is an Editor-in-Chief of the journal Trials.