RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS
Randomized Trials in Epidemiology
Wei et al. (2017) conducted a randomized controlled trial to measure the effectiveness of an antimicrobial stewardship program. The program, which targeted caregivers and providers in China, sought to reduce inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for respiratory tract infections in children. The study was informed by the high rate of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing among pediatric patients in China. The study population was primary care hospitals in rural China. The researchers selected all 25 hospitals within Liujiang and Rong Counties in Guangxi Province, and randomly allocated 13 to the control group and 12 to the intervention group over a six-month intervention period. Hospitals in the intervention group received caregiver education on antibiotics prescribing, monthly peer-review meetings for physicians, as well as clinician training and guidelines on appropriate antibiotics prescribing. Conversely, those in the control group offered usual care, where clinicians prescribe antibiotics at their discretion.
The study ran for six months. The outcome measure was the antibiotic prescription rate for pediatric outpatients aged between 2 and 14 receiving treatment for upper respiratory tract infections. The researchers collected baseline data on pediatric antibiotic prescription rates in all hospitals in the three months before the start of the study. To assess the effectiveness of the intervention, the researchers reviewed outpatient antibiotic prescription rates over the final three months of the six-month intervention period to determine the proportion of outpatient pediatric...
Despite these ethical issues, the adopted study design brings about crucial benefits that would not be realized using other research designs. The primary benefit is that the random assignment of items to either the control or intervention group helps to increase objectivity by minimizing researcher bias in selecting whom to place in what group (Goldstein et al., 2018). The high objectivity, in turn, enhances the generalizability of research findings (Goldstein et al., 2018). Generalizability means that the research findings generated from the sample can effectively be used to make inferences about the entire population. In this case, for instance,…
References
Curley, A. L. (Ed.). (2020). Population-Based Nursing: Concepts and Competencies for Advanced Practice (3rd ed.). Danvers, MA: Springer.
Goldstein, C. E., Weijer, C., Brehaut, J., Fergusson, D.A., Grimshaw, J., Horn, A. R., & Taljaard, M. (2018). Ethical Issues in Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trials: A Review of the Recent Literature Identifies Gaps in Ethical Argumentation. BMC Medical Ethics, 14(1), org/10.1186/s12910-018-0253-x
Wei, X., Zhang, Z., Walley, J., Hicks, J., Zeng, J.,…& Lin, M. (2017). Effect of a Training and Educational Intervention for Physicians and Caregivers on Antibiotic Prescribing for Upper Respiratory Tract Infections in Children at Primary Care Facilities in Rural China: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. The Lancet, 5(12), 1258-67.
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now