Table 2.
Characteristics of the RCT reports from which primary qualitative studies sourced participants
| N = 42 (100.0%) | |
|---|---|
| RCT characteristics | |
| Clinical setting | |
| Primary (home/GP/community based) | 4 (9.5%) |
| Secondary (hospital based) | 27 (64.3%) |
| Tertiary (specialized academic health facility based) | 11 (26.2%) |
| Geographical location | |
| Europe | 33 (78.6%) |
| America (USA and Central) | 1 (2.4%) |
| Africa | 3 (7.1%) |
| Asia | 1 (2.4%) |
| Oceania | 1 (2.4%) |
| Multi-continental | 3 (7.1%) |
| RCT funding sources/sponsorship | |
| Non-profit/academic/public organizations | 40 (95.0%) |
| Blinding of patients | |
| Yes | 13 (31.0%) |
| Number of trial arms | |
| 2 | 34 (81.0%) |
| 3 | 7 (16.7%) |
| 4 | 1 (2.4%) |
| Intervention ** | |
| Drug (topical, oral, SC, IM, IV) | 22 (52.4%) |
| Surgical procedure | 4 (9.5%) |
| Participative (psychological, physical, educational, palliative, rehabilitative) | 11 (26.2%) |
| Other | 5 (11.9%) |
| Comparator** | |
| Placebo/Sham treatment | 11 (26.2%) |
| Usual care/no treatment | 18 (42.8%) |
| Active treatment | 13 (31.0%) |
| Number of patients randomized | |
| Mean (SD); n*** | 1199 (1999); 46,748 |
| Issues with RCT? | |
| None reported*** | 32 (76.2%) |
| Suboptimal recruitment (slow accrual, unwilling to be randomized, high refusal rate, regulatory delays, lack of eligible patients) | 8 (19.0%) |
| Informed consent in an emergency | 2 (4.8%) |
*Due to rounding off numbers may not add up to 100
**If the RCT contained more than 2 arms, only 1 experimental intervention and 1 comparator was extracted
***There is missing data for 5 RCTs as only the protocol was available