Employing staff on long term contracts is important for RCTs

BMJ 1999;318:1075 ( 17 April )

Letters

Employing staff on long term contracts is important for RCTs

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Medical professionals and funding agencies do not seem to recognise the importance of a trained, experienced, multidisciplinaryteam in the setting up and coordination of a multicentre clinicaltrial.¹ They also do not seem to recognise the role that suchteams have in maintaining enthusiasm among medical staff throughoutthe often long periods of recruitment and followup.

The cost of employing a dedicated trial team is poorly appreciated. It is essential to train and maintain staff to providethe necessary skill. Although training is available for statisticiansand programmers, training facilities for trial coordination staffare limited. Career plans for all staff are often unstructured,if they exist atall.

The time taken to maintain enthusiasm in centres, to visit centres throughout the trial, to monitor recruitment, and to identifymethods to improve recruitment is often underestimated. A wellrun trial also involves considerable data handling, including. . . [Full text of this article]