In this week's PLOS Medicine , Charles Weijer and colleagues present the Ottawa Statement on the Ethical Design and Conduct of Cluster Randomized Trials, which aims to provide researchers and research ethics committees with detailed guidance on the ethical design, conduct, and review of CRTs.
Funding: This work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant numbers MOP85066, MOP89790). CW and JMG hold Tier I Canada Research Chairs. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Members of the Ottawa Ethics of Cluster Randomized Trials Consensus Group participated in this project as individuals and not as representatives of their employers. Authorship does not imply the approval of this document by the authors' employers or other organizations with which they are affiliated.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Weijer C, Grimshaw JM, Eccles MP, McRae AD, White A, et al. (2012) The Ottawa Statement on the Ethical Design and Conduct of Cluster Randomized Trials. PLoS Med 9(11): e1001346. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001346
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http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001346
CONTACT:
Charles Weijer
Rotman Institute of Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
Western University, London, Ontario, Canada,
cweijer@uwo.ca
PLOS Medicine