The
annual HealthWatch student prize for evaluation of clinical research protocols
is generously supported by a grant from the Ajahma Trust. It is open to medical
and nursing students. The closing date is 31st July 2008.Search HealthWatch
The
annual HealthWatch student prize for evaluation of clinical research protocols
is generously supported by a grant from the Ajahma Trust. It is open to medical
and nursing students. The closing date is 31st July 2008.
The competition consists of four protocols for hypothetical clinical trials. Your task is to rank them by giving a rating =1 for trial that you consider is most likely to provide a reliable answer to the stated aim of the trial, and 4 for that least likely to do so.
Click here to download the entry form and protocols as a Word (.rtf) file
Click here to download the entry form and protocols as an Acrobat (.pdf) file
You are assessing the quality of the protocols, not the desirability of the aim. Each protocol starts (as it should) with a "Scientific background" summarising previous relevant research. Entrants should assume this is work correctly cited from reliable sources.
On a single separate sheet of A4 paper type not more than 600 words to explain your reasons for assigning these ratings. This requires you to identify flaws in design of the protocols, so, if the trial was carried out, the conclusion could not be firmly established.
If a protocol is fatally flawed say so: if has minor remediable flaws indicate how it could be improved.
You are invited to look at the protocols used in previous years for this competition. The documents will open in a new window and are in Adobe Reader format (.pdf), but remember that the competition is to evaluate the 2008 protocols.
Don't
have Adobe Reader? It's free to download. Click
here
to go to the Adobe website and download the reader. The link opens in a new
window.
Copyright © 2008 HealthWatch. This page was updated on March 31, 2008