The Trials & Tribulations of Designing & Running Collaborative Clinical Trials

Introduction/Background:
Clinical trials form an important part of the evidence base of herbal and naturopathic medicine, along with other types of research and traditional evidence. However, setting up and running them can be challenging, and may be why many clinical trials of herbal interventions do not involve herbalists and naturopaths. However, the lack of involvement of practitioners can be problematic, impacting the validity and applicability of the trial results to clinical practice.
Workshop Topic:
Using the ongoing ESOLED trial as a case study (which emerged from a collaboration between a researcher and practitioner), this workshop will take attendees through some of the steps of collaborative clinical trial design and management. The facilitators will describe some key obstacles and solutions, and engage the audience in an open discussion to share ideas and promote best practice.
Learning Objectives:
1. Describetherelevanceandvalueofclinicaltrialstothetotalityofevidencefor herbal and naturopathic medicine.
2. Nurtureopendiscussionamongstnoviceandexperiencedresearchersto share common problems, and discuss solutions.
3. Facilitatetheinvolvementofherbalandnaturopathicpractitionersinclinical trial design and administration.
Implications:
Collaboration between researchers and clinicians, and the sharing of experiences, are instrumental in optimising the quality, relevance, translatability and implementation of research findings to herbal and naturopathic practice. Attendees of this workshop will take away key lessons from the experiences of the facilitators and other researchers, and apply these to their own situation in order to improve practitioner engagement in the design and management of clinical trials.