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Preserving equipoise and performing randomised trials for COVID-19 social distancing interventions.
Cristea, Ioana Alina; Naudet, Florian; Ioannidis, John P A.
  • Cristea IA; Department of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
  • Naudet F; University Rennes, CHU Rennes, Inserm, CIC 1414 (Centre d'Investigation Clinique de Rennes), F-35000, Rennes, France.
  • Ioannidis JPA; Departments of Medicine, of Epidemiology and Population Health of Biomedical Data Science, and of Statistics, and Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci ; 29: e184, 2020 Oct 28.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-926780
ABSTRACT
In the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a large number of non-pharmaceutical measures that pertain to the wider group of social distancing interventions (e.g. public gathering bans, closures of schools, workplaces and all but essential business, mandatory stay-at-home policies, travel restrictions, border closures and others) have been deployed. Their urgent deployment was defended with modelling and observational data of spurious credibility. There is major debate on whether these measures are effective and there is also uncertainty about the magnitude of the harms that these measures might induce. Given that there is equipoise for how, when and if specific social distancing interventions for COVID-19 should be applied and removed/modified during reopening, we argue that informative randomised-controlled trials are needed. Only a few such randomised trials have already been conducted, but the ones done to-date demonstrate that a randomised trials agenda is feasible. We discuss here issues of study design choice, selection of comparators (intervention and controls), choice of outcomes and additional considerations for the conduct of such trials. We also discuss and refute common counter-arguments against the conduct of such trials.
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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Psychological Distance / Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Coronavirus / Therapeutic Equipoise / Pandemics Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study / Prognostic study / Randomized controlled trials Limits: Humans Language: English Journal: Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci Year: 2020 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: S2045796020000992

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Psychological Distance / Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Coronavirus / Therapeutic Equipoise / Pandemics Type of study: Experimental Studies / Observational study / Prognostic study / Randomized controlled trials Limits: Humans Language: English Journal: Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci Year: 2020 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: S2045796020000992