PR - Core clinical outcomes for glaucoma trials: patients’ perspectives
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development of core clinical outcome measures for glaucoma interventions: Patients’ perspectives
IRAS ID
160348
Contact name
Rehab Ahmed/RA Ismail
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 0 months, 30 days
Research summary
To help health professionals decide what is the best treatment for patients they need to have evidence about which treatment works best. To decide which treatments are best, it is important to look at the effect those treatments have on patients by measuring an 'outcome' in a trial. The careful selection of appropriate outcomes is therefore crucial to the design of trials.
At present, different studies looking at treatments for glaucoma measure different outcomes. Their results cannot be combined because they have used different outcomes. If studies use a core set of outcomes, their results could all be compared. This would make the best use of research and would bring studies to get a better understanding of which treatments are best for patients. The role of patient as research partners has recently been acknowledged.In order for patients to share in making informed decisions about an intervention, they should know whether it is likely to benefit them in the way that they would hope, and this relies on the measurement of outcomes, which they feel are important.
Deciding which outcomes should be core for glaucoma trials requires clinicians’ and patients’ perspectives. We have used consensus methods and recently identified core clinical outcomes by consulting glaucoma clinicians and now we aim to get patients’ perspectives on those clinical outcomes by conducting a discussion group with glaucoma patients. A prospective cohort of between 7-9 patients with any type of glaucoma will be recruited from Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. The meeting will last up to 1.5 hours. The study proposed here will explore patient perspectives on the core outcomes and the ways of measuring these identified clinical outcomes.
Patient involvement in outcome development will lead to research that is more likely to have measured meaningful outcomes.RI is funded by James Mearns Trust for PhD Studentship.
REC name
South East Scotland REC 01
REC reference
14/SS/1084
Date of REC Opinion
26 Nov 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion