Health Statistics Group Seminar: Randomised Controlled Trials for Depression in Primary Care

Tim Peters is Professor of Primary Care Health Services Research and Head of the School of Clinical Sciences at the University of Bristol.  A statistician and trialist with over 30 years’ experience of epidemiology and research on health and health services, mostly in primary care, his research interests focus on community-based evaluations of health interventions, ranging from surgical and medical procedures through to the organisation of health care services.  Many of these evaluations involve randomised trials conducted by multidisciplinary research teams including quantitative and qualitative methodologists. His particular areas of interest are mental health and chronic disease.

This talk will use practical examples of the design and analysis of three rather different randomised controlled trials of primary care-based treatments for depression, to illustrate and evaluate the impact of applying various simple and complex trials methods. As well as conventional challenges of standard sample size calculations and practical issues of recruitment in community-based settings, the more challenging aspects include: designing trials to investigate subgroup effects; multiple follow-up times; allowing for practice- and therapist-based clustering effects; missing data; and explanatory (causal) analyses. The approaches and the findings from the three example trials will be presented, along with general conclusions from the perspective of a trialist on the value and role of the various analytical methods employed for these studies.

Please register your attendance by emailing: cath.hopkins@exeter.ac.uk