Background
Site Selection Questionnaires (SSQs) have evolved to become “best” practice for commercial and non-commercial clinical trials. There has been limited evaluation of such questionnaires, however, and there is no generally accepted tool or methodology for selecting suitable sites for inclusion in a trial. Nottingham Clinical Trials Unit introduced a site selection questionnaire in 2010, this paper will present evaluation of the questionnaire’s performance in five trials.
Method
Sites expressing an interest in participating in one of the 5 trials were sent an SSQ for completion by the PI; responses were made available to the CI to use if they wished. Once recruitment started, questionnaire responses were assessed ‘blind’ to site and PI identifiers, using predefined criteria: not returned, pool of participants, staff resources, trials experience, competing trials, and equipoise.
Results
Overall in these 5 trials 421 questionnaires were sent out, and 155 sites selected. Results of the blinded assessment and agreement between this assessment and the CI will be presented and discussed. Site performance based on time to recruitment of first participant, and ratio of actual to target recruitment, will be compared for sites included and excluded based on the blind assessment.
Discussion
Site selection is a key element for quality and efficiency in clinical trials. Results from this evaluation contribute to the understanding of how a well developed Site Selection Questionnaire can improve selection of sites in large multicentre trials.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
This article is published under an open access license. Please check the 'Copyright Information' section either on this page or in the PDF for details of this license and what re-use is permitted. If your intended use exceeds what is permitted by the license or if you are unable to locate the licence and re-use information, please contact the Rights and Permissions team.
About this article
Cite this article
Coleby, D., Whitham, D. & Duley, L. Can site performance be predicted? Results of an evaluation of the performance of a site selection questionnaire in five multicentre trials. Trials 16 (Suppl 2), P176 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/1745-6215-16-S2-P176
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1745-6215-16-S2-P176