Upcoming Events

Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NG6DbrnfSr60jmf1GAMBFA

Will Cragg – Clinical Trials Research Unit, University of Leeds
Will is a Quality Assurance Officer at the CTRU in Leeds, UK. He has over 10 years’ experience in clinical trials, in both operational and research methodology roles. He has a strong interest in improving the quality and efficiency of research, as well as a commitment to making research participation and involvement as good as they can be for those who take part.

Abstract: 

The PeRSEVERE project (PRincipleS for handling end of follow-up EVEnts in clinical trials REsearch), supported by the UK CRC Registered CTU Network and led by Network members, is seeking to address this. We are motivated by such issues as unclear terminology when collecting or reporting data on trial retention issues (e.g. the meaning of the word ‘withdrawal’ itself), and available data being lost to a trial because of an assumption that data from routine healthcare visits cannot be used, when trial participants may not even have been consulted about their preferences.

Trial participants’ right to withdraw their consent to participate is fundamental to ethical clinical trial conduct. Participants stopping some or all elements of participation usually leads to missing data in trial analysis, which reduces trials’ ability to reliably answer research questions. Significant work has been done on handling missing data in trial analyses, but these methods are based on sometimes unverifiable assumptions, and it is recognised that it is better to avoid missing data altogether. There is also emerging evidence about how to reduce the proportion of people in each trial who express a wish to reduce or stop their participation. However, in current practice it is still common for as many as 10% or more of people recruited to a trial to decide they no longer want to participate (before their planned end of participation).

It might be that trials are not always optimally set up to handle this inevitability. The PeRSEVERE project (PRincipleS for handling end of follow-up EVEnts in clinical trials REsearch), supported by the UK CRC Registered CTU Network and led by Network members, is seeking to address this. We are motivated by such issues as unclear terminology when collecting or reporting data on trial retention issues (e.g. the meaning of the word ‘withdrawal’ itself), and available data being lost to a trial because of an assumption that data from routine healthcare visits cannot be used, when trial participants may not even have been consulted about their preferences.

We are aiming to develop high-level principles for how ongoing retention issues should be prepared for and handled in trials. We would then like to consult more widely on the acceptability of these principles, then release them to start a wider discussion and hopefully influence practice.

This webinar will cover the project background in more detail, give an update on the development of the high-level principles, and explain how you can give your feedback as part of the consultation.

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COMET 2020 Webinar series
Following the COVID-19 global outbreak earlier this year, the COMET Management Group has made the difficult decision to postpone COMET VIII until it is safe to go ahead with the meeting, and a new date for this meeting will be confirmed as soon as it is possible to do so. As we had already started to plan an exciting programme for COMET VIII, we still want to be able to
share this with you. We are therefore planning a webinar series that will start on October the 8th and 9th 2020, with two consecutive webinars on the days that would have been COMET VIII, followed by once a fortnight after that. More details about forthcoming webinars will be announced as they become available.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar series, please email: info@comet-initiative.org

Thursday 8th October 2020 12.00-13.00 BST
Hywel Williams, University of Nottingham “Are you still troubled by research waste?”

Despite Chalmers and Glasziou1 calling for the research community to reduce wasteful research in 2009, I still witness a lot of research waste in my various roles as researcher and funder. I see waste in terms of uninformative duplication of effort due to failure to check what is already known, answering research questions that are not prioritised by research users, using outcomes that are of limited meaning to end users, failure to design research in a way that minimises bias, poor reporting of studies, failure to publish or publication of a selection of favourable outcomes, and the lack of use of core outcomes that enable results from one study to be combined with others in order to produce a more meaningful interpretation of the totality of evidence. I will explain what I mean through the lens of my own field of skin disease research, reflect on the reasons why such undesirable behaviour patterns persist and suggest some solutions going forward including how we are trying to tackle the problem through the NIHR adding value in research strategy.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

COMET 2020 Webinar series
Following the COVID-19 global outbreak earlier this year, the COMET Management Group has made the difficult decision to postpone COMET VIII until it is safe to go ahead with the meeting, and a new date for this meeting will be confirmed as soon as it is possible to do so. As we had already started to plan an exciting programme for COMET VIII, we still want to be able to
share this with you. We are therefore planning a webinar series that will start on October the 8th and 9th 2020, with two consecutive webinars on the days that would have been COMET VIII, followed by once a fortnight after that. More details about forthcoming webinars will be announced as they become available.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar series, please email: info@comet-initiative.org

Friday 9th October 2020 13.00-14.00 BST
Paula Williamson and Sarah Gorst, University of Liverpool

The COMET Initiative has successfully brought together the international core outcome set (COS) literature in an online database. Annual completion of a systematic review of COS for research2 ensures that the database is kept up-to date, and the database is continually updated as we identify eligible studies. In this webinar we will share with you what we see as key findings across the body of evidence about COS in the COMET database, including an overview of the outcomes that are included in COS, the methods of development used, the different stakeholders involved, and the countries that participants come from, amongst other topics. We will also present and discuss work to date on COS for COVID-193, including the lessons learnt about raising awareness of work on this topic, ways to disseminate COS more widely and the steps taken to promote the use of COS for COVID-19 research.

By Elizabeth Allen, University of Cape Town

Register in advance for this webinar: https://www.tmn.ac.uk/events/register.aspx?id=1379919&itemid=3e8170a2-9d6b-44cc-9de9-49ccf416be2a

Please note, you need to register for this event in order to receive an email invitation to join the session. Registrations are limited to 100 attendees and places will be offered on a first come first served basis. 

You will need access to web and sound facilities in order to view this webinar. 

A recording of the webinar will be made available after the event.

If you have any questions regarding this event, please email uktmn@nottingham.ac.uk

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

COMET 2020 Webinar series
Following the COVID-19 global outbreak earlier this year, the COMET Management Group has made the difficult decision to postpone COMET VIII until it is safe to go ahead with the meeting, and a new date for this meeting will be confirmed as soon as it is possible to do so. As we had already started to plan an exciting programme for COMET VIII, we still want to be able to
share this with you. We are therefore planning a webinar series that will start on October the 8th and 9th 2020, with two consecutive webinars on the days that would have been COMET VIII, followed by once a fortnight after that. More details about forthcoming webinars will be announced as they become available.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar series, please email: info@comet-initiative.org

Tuesday 20th October 2020 14.00-14.45 BST
Eleanor Perfetto, National Health Council (NHC), John Turner (Public Co-Chair of COMET’s PoPPIE Working Group) and Heather Bagley (COMET’s Patient and Public Involvement Co-ordinator)

Resources to support core outcome set developers including patients in their work – an update

COMET has a range of resources to support the input of patients in core outcome set work. Join John Turner and Heather Bagley in this webinar to find out more about the resources available and the activities of COMET’s PoPPIE Working Group.

Location: Birmingham

Further information: https://www.methodologyhubs.mrc.ac.uk/workshops/ 

2020 Course dates: 27-29 July 2020, 16-18 November

There is a need to train existing and potential clinical researchers in the design, management, analysis and interpretation of randomised clinical trials. The Birmingham Clinical Trials Unit organises and runs a course in research methods for clinical trials, which is designed to help researchers apply the most effective practical methods to answer key problems in clinical and other health care research.

CPD approved (accredited with 18 CPD points).

The course is designed to appeal to a broad audience ranging from those who have little experience in clinical trials to those who wish to widen their knowledge of the conduct of such trials. Attendance would be appropriate for: Clinical researchers who are planning or running a clinical trial Medical staff involved in clinical trials who are interested in expanding their knowledge Trial coordinators, trial administrators, data managers, research nurses and others who wish to expand their knowledge of clinical trial methodology.

• More information, prices, provisional programme

The course consists of a series of talks and workshops that will concentrate on the practicalities of developing and running a randomised clinical trial. Subjects covered include:

•     Choosing the question: systematic reviews and meta-analysis
•     Trial design: large simple trials and other designs
•     Funding and research costs
•     Ethical and regulatory considerations
•     Protocol development
•     Practical procedures for running a trial
•     Research governance
•     Pharmacovigilance
•     Computerised trial management
•     Critical appraisal of published work
•     Statistical analysis for non-statisticians
•     Quality of life studies
•     Health economics
•     Data monitoring

Please note that the course focuses on phase III randomised trials, but many of the principles and considerations covered in the course apply equally to both phase I and II trials.

FREE REGISTRATION NOW OPEN CLICK HERE

FULL PROGRAMME HERE