Cluster randomized trials produced similar results to individually randomized trials in a meta-analysis of enhanced care for depression

Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

Volumn 61, Issue 2, 2008, Pages

  Gilbody, Simon ^a   Bower, Peter ^b   Torgerson, David ^a   Richards, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF YORK   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Baseline imbalances; Cluster randomized trials; Depression; Meta analysis; Selection bias; Trial design

Indexed keywords

ANALYTICAL ERROR; ARTICLE; CLINICAL TRIAL; CONFIDENCE INTERVAL; CORRELATION COEFFICIENT; DEPRESSION; HUMAN; META ANALYSIS; PRIORITY JOURNAL; RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL; SCORING SYSTEM; STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE; SYSTEMATIC REVIEW;

EID: 37449022541     PISSN: 08954356     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2007.04.015     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. Ukoumunne O.C., Gulliford M.C., Chinn S., Sterne J.A., Burney P.G., and Donner A. Methods in health service research. Evaluation of health interventions at area and organisation level. BMJ 319 7206 (1999) 376-379
2. Donner A., Birkett N., and Buck C. Randomization by cluster. Sample size requirements and analysis. Am J Epidemiol 114 (1981) 906-914
3. Slymen D.J., and Hovell M.F. Cluster versus individual randomization in adolescent tobacco and alcohol studies: illustrations for design decisions. Int J Epidemiol 26 (1997) 765-771
4. Moerbeek M. Power and money in cluster randomized trials: when is it worth measuring a covariate?. Stat Med 25 (2006) 2607-2617
5. Bland J.M., and Kerry S.M. Statistics notes. Trials randomised in clusters. BMJ 315 7108 (1997) 600
6. Puffer S., Torgerson D., and Watson J. Evidence for risk of bias in cluster randomised trials: review of recent trials published in three general medical journals. BMJ 327 7418 (2003) 785-789
7. Puffer S., Torgerson D.J., and Watson J. Cluster randomized controlled trials. J Eval Clin Pract 11 5 (2005) 479-483
8. Schulz K.F., Chalmers I., Hayes R.J., and Altman D.G. Empirical evidence of bias: dimensions of methodological quality associated with estimates of treatment effects in controlled trials. JAMA 273 (1995) 408-412
9. Torgerson D. Contamination in trials: is cluster randomisation the answer?. BMJ 322 (2000) 355-357
10. Bland J.M. Cluster randomised trials in the medical literature: two bibliometric surveys. BMC Med Res Methodol 4 (2004) 21
11. Thomas R.E., Ramsay C.R., McAuley L., and Grimshaw J.M. Unit of analysis errors should be clarified in meta-analyses. BMJ 326 (2003) 397
12. Weingarten S.R., Henning J.M., Badamgarav E., Knight K., and Hasselblad V. Interventions used in disease management programmes for patients with chronic illness-which ones work? Meta-analysis of published reports. BMJ 325 (2002) 925
13. Higgins J.P.T., and Green S. Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions 4.2.4. [updated March 2005] (2005), John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK
14. NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination. Undertaking systematic reviews of research on effectiveness: CRD report 4. 2nd edition (2001), University of York, York
15. Bero L., Grilli R., Grimshaw J., and Oxman A. The Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group (EPOC) module. The Cochrane Library Issue 4 (1998), Update Software, Oxford
16. Donner A., and Klar N. Issues in the meta-analysis of cluster randomized trials. Stat Med 21 (2002) 2971-2980
17. Gilbody S., Bower P., Fletcher J., Richards D., and Sutton A.J. Collaborative care for depression: a cumulative meta-analysis and review of longer-term outcomes. Arch Intern Med 166 (2006) 2314-2321
18. Badamgarav E., Weingarten S., and Henning J. Effectiveness of disease management programs in depression: a systematic review. Am J Psychiatry 160 (2003) 2080-2090
19. Von Korff M. Can care management enhance integration of primary and specialty care?. BMJ 329 (2004) 605
20. Bower P., and Gilbody S. Managing common mental health disorders in primary care: conceptual models and evidence base. BMJ 330 (2005) 839-842
21. Wells K.A., Sherbourne C., Schoenbaum M., Duan N., Meridith L., Unutzer J., et al. Impact of disseminating quality improvement programmes for depression in managed primary care: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 283 (2000) 212-220
22. Churchill R., Hunot V., Corney R., Knapp M., McGuire H., Tylee A., et al. A systematic review of controlled trials of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of brief psychological treatments for depression. Health Technol Assess 5 (2001) 1-173
23. DerSimonian R., and Laird N. Meta-analysis in clinical trials. Control Clin Trials 7 (1986) 177-188
24. Altman D.G. Comparability of randomised groups. Statistician 34 (1985) 125-136
25. Thompson S.G., and Higgins J.P. How should meta-regression analyses be undertaken and interpreted?. Stat Med 21 (2002) 1559-1573
26. Adams G., Gulliford M.C., Ukoumunne O.C., Eldridge S., Chinn S., and Campbell M. Patterns of intra-cluster correlation from primary care research to inform study design and analysis. J Clin Epidemiol 57 (2004) 784-793
27. Higgins J.P., Thompson S.G., Deeks J.J., and Altman D.G. Measuring inconsistency in meta-analyses. BMJ 327 (2003) 557-560
28. Higgins J.P.T., and Thompson S.G. Controlling the risk of spurious findings from meta-regression. Stat Med 23 (2004) 1663-1682
29. Rao J.N.K., and Scott A.J. A simple method for the analysis of clustered binary data. Biometrics 48 (1992) 577-585
30. White I.R., and Thomas J. Standardized mean differences in individually-randomized and cluster-randomized trials, with applications to meta-analysis. Clin Trials 2 (2005) 141-151
31. STATA (version 8). [program] (2003), STATA corporation, Texas
32. Ukoumunne O.C., Gulliford M.C., Chinn S., Sterne A.C., and Burney P.G.J. Methods for evaluating area-wide and organisation based interventions in health and health care: a systematic review. Health Technol Assess 3 5 (1999)
33. Hahn S., Puffer S., Torgerson D.J., and Watson J. Methodological bias in cluster randomised trials. BMC Med Res Methodol 5 (2005) 10
34. Thompson S.G., and Sharp S.J. Explaining heterogeneity in meta-analysis: a comparison of methods. Stat Med 18 (1999) 2693-2708
35. Campbell M., Fitzpatrick R., Haines A., Kinmonth A.L., Sandercock P., Spiegelhalter D., et al. Framework for design and evaluation of complex interventions to improve health. BMJ 321 (2000) 694-696