A cluster-randomised controlled trial is a type of

randomised controlled trial A randomized controlled trial (or randomized control trial; RCT) is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical t ...

in which groups of subjects (as opposed to individual subjects) are randomised. Cluster randomised controlled trials are also known as cluster-randomised trials, group-randomised trials, and place-randomized trials. Cluster-randomised controlled trials are used when there is a strong reason for randomising treatment and control groups over randomising participants.

Prevalence

A 2004

bibliometric Bibliometrics is the use of statistical methods to analyse books, articles and other publications, especially in regard with scientific contents. Bibliometric methods are frequently used in the field of library and information science. Biblio ...

study documented an increasing number of publications in the medical literature on cluster-randomised controlled trials since the 1980s.

Advantages

Advantages of cluster-randomised controlled trials over individually randomised controlled trials include: * The ability to study interventions that cannot be directed toward selected individuals (e.g., a radio show about lifestyle changes) and the ability to control for "contamination" across individuals (e.g., one individual's changing behaviors may influence another individual to do so). * Reduced cost in running a survey. For example, when wanting to survey households, it could often be cheaper to choose street blocks and survey all the houses there in order to reduce the cost of traveling for the people conducting the survey.Sampling People, Networks and Records
coursers course (worth finding a better reference) * Sometimes due to data availability, it is only possible to do cluster sampling. For example, if wanting to survey households, it may be that there is no census list of houses (due to privacy restrictions of the Bureau of Statistics of the country). However, there may be a public record of street blocks and their addresses, and these can be used for creating the

sampling frame In statistics, a sampling frame is the source material or device from which a sample is drawn. It is a list of all those within a population who can be sampled, and may include individuals, households or institutions. Importance of the sampling fra ...

Disadvantages

Disadvantages compared with individually randomised controlled trials include greater complexity in design and analysis, and a requirement for more participants to obtain the same statistical power. Use of this type of trial also means that the experiences of individuals within the same group are likely similar, leading to correlated results. This correlation is measured by the

intraclass correlation In statistics, the intraclass correlation, or the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), is a descriptive statistic that can be used when quantitative measurements are made on units that are organized into groups. It describes how strongly u ...

, also known as the intracluster correlation. Though this correlation is a known component of cluster-randomised controlled trials, a large proportion of the trials fail to account for it. Failing to control for intraclass correlation negatively affects both the statistical power and the incidence of Type I errors of an analysis.

Prevalence

Advantages

Disadvantages

See also

References

Further reading