The evaluation of perioperative interventions through randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is fundamentally important for evidence-based care. Information about intervention delivery is needed in order to confidently interpret trial results, however, this information is not reported consistently. We have undertaken research to develop frameworks for anaesthetic interventions to help triallists and clinicians approach the process of designing, standardising, and reporting anaesthetic interventions in trials.
Frameworks for general, regional and sedation anaesthesia have been developed by our research team using a systematic literature review of RCTs of anaesthetic interventions and feedback from key stakeholders in focus groups and interviews.
We envisage these frameworks would be used by research teams right from the very initial stages of trial design when developing protocols for the delivery of anaesthetic interventions and comparators. They would be used to help research teams:
- Describe anaesthetic interventions fully, and
- Decide when and how individual components should be standardised and monitored within the trial.
The frameworks could also be used as checklists for reporting anaesthetic interventions in trials.
Please see our three pages above to access each framework.
Research team:
Dr Karen Coulman, Research Fellow, University of Bristol
Dr Lucy Elliott, NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Anaesthesia, University of Bristol
Dr Joyce Yeung, Associate Clinical Professor, Warwick Medical School
Dr Natalie Blencowe, Associate Professor in Surgery, University of Bristol
Prof Rob Hinchliffe, Professor of Vascular Surgery, University of Bristol
Dr Ronelle Mouton, Honorary Associate Professor of Anaesthesia, University of Bristol
The study is supported by a grant from the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain & Ireland (AAGBI) via the National Institute for Academic Anaesthesia (NIAA) and received stakeholder support from the Perioperative Medicine Clinical Trials Network (POMCTN) and the Anaesthesia Research Society (ARS). The project was also supported by funding from the University of Bristol Elizabeth Blackwell Institute Clinical Primer Scheme, the David Telling Charitable Trust, the North Bristol Vascular Charitable Fund, and the NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Bristol.