Clinical trials

The term "clinically proven", used throughout even the lay vernacular, highlights the high status of clinical trials in health research. This is because clinical trials provide the most robust evidence of the benefits of healthcare interventions; they are the 'gold standard' study design.

A solid understanding of clinical trials is a key requirement for anyone working in clinical research, or who need to interpret the results of clinical research.

This unit will equip you with the skills to formulate research questions, design appropriate clinical trials, select and recruit study subjects, conduct randomisation, analyse data, interpret findings, manage outcomes and consider issues of ethics, budget and quality assurance. It will also endow you with the skills to critically appraise clinical trials.