Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33109299›Full record

ArticleEpidemiology and psychiatric sciences2020

Preserving equipoise and performing randomised trials for COVID-19 social distancing interventions.

Ioana Alina Cristea, Florian Naudet, John P A Ioannidis

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
11citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

11 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Ioana Alina CristeaDepartment of Brain and Behavioral Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9854-7076
Florian NaudetUniversity Rennes, CHU Rennes, Inserm, CIC 1414 (Centre d'Investigation Clinique de Rennes), F-35000, Rennes, France.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3760-3801
John P A IoannidisDepartments of Medicine, of Epidemiology and Population Health of Biomedical Data Science, and of Statistics, and Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3118-6859

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a large number of non-pharmaceutical measures that pertain to the wider group of social distancing interventions (e.g. public gathering bans, closures of schools, workplaces and all but essential business, mandatory stay-at-home policies, travel restrictions, border closures and others) have been deployed. Their urgent deployment was defended with modelling and observational data of spurious credibility. There is major debate on whether these measures are effective and there is also uncertainty about the magnitude of the harms that these measures might induce. Given that there is equipoise for how, when and if specific social distancing interventions for COVID-19 should be applied and removed/modified during reopening, we argue that informative randomised-controlled trials are needed. Only a few such randomised trials have already been conducted, but the ones done to-date demonstrate that a randomised trials agenda is feasible. We discuss here issues of study design choice, selection of comparators (intervention and controls), choice of outcomes and additional considerations for the conduct of such trials. We also discuss and refute common counter-arguments against the conduct of such trials.

Indexed as

CoronavirusPandemicsPsychological DistanceRandomized Controlled Trials as TopicTherapeutic EquipoiseBetacoronavirusCoronavirus InfectionsCOVID-19HumansPneumonia, ViralResearch DesignSARS-CoV-2Social ConditionsRandomisationrandomised-controlled trialsresearch design and methodsstatistics

Identifiers

PMID33109299
PMCPMC7674786

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.