Uncertainties
The ideal way to work out which treatment is best is by testing treatments (for example different types of ventilator) in a randomised controlled trial. Unfortunately, because randomised controlled trials are very expensive, time consuming and burdensome, only a small number of the treatments used on neonatal units have been tested this way.
Because of this there is a lot of uncertainty about how best to treat babies that need neonatal care, and as a result the treatments given in one part of the country may be different from those give somewhere else. The neoEPOCH project is all about making neonatal randomised controlled trials easier and simpler so these uncertainties can be resolved quickly and efficiently, ultimately improving neonatal care.
AIM
To know which treatments to test in randomised controlled trials, we need to know which treatment uncertainties are most important to health professionals, parents and patients. The aim of this part of neoEPOCH is to identify important neonatal uncertainties.
research overview
There are two ways to identify important neonatal uncertainties:
1. By asking parents, patients, neonatal doctors, nurses and other neonatal health professionals which neonatal uncertainties are most important to them - you can do this using the form below.
2. By using the information held in the National Neonatal Research Database (NNRD) to work out which treatment decisions vary the most across neonatal units in England, Scotland and Wales.
research importance
When we know which neonatal treatment uncertainties are the most important, we can design randomised controlled trials to resolve them.