Training of staff within randomised controlled trials (RCTS) of health-care interventions: a systematic review of the literature

Results 7471 records were screened and 89 studies were identified; 78 (88%) focused on training in an individual RCT and 11 (12%) were network-based. Studies were mainly conducted in USA (55%) and internationally (27%). Most were multi-centre (94%) and funded by noncommercial funders (70%). Different combinations of live (face-to-face and remote) and recorded (text-based and multimedia) training methods were used. Training was mainly provided at a group-level (51%), by trainers from the research team (65%). Intervention delivery/ fidelity (49%), protocol and trial-related procedures (39%), trial data (36%), patient recruitment (31%) and outcome assessment (18%) were the top five training objectives. Evaluation information was present in 88% of studies, however, a detailed evaluation was only given in 12% of them. Information on the cost of training was only reported in 4.5% of studies.