ArticleTrials2022
The People's Trial: supporting the public's understanding of randomised trials.
Article in Trials, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04185818 (Citizen Science), which is not on this map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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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.
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.
Citizen Science: The People's Trial: A Randomised Controlled Trial
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Feasibility and Methodological Reflections From the Co-Creation of a Randomized Controlled Trial (The Kid's Trial): Decentralized, Child-Led Citizen-Science Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- The REST (randomised evaluation of sleeping with a toy or comfort item) trial: a protocol for an online, randomised trial of comfort item use on sleep quality in children.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2025Article
- Co-producing a randomized controlled trial on the frequency of bathing in eczema: description of a citizen science approach.Skin health and disease · 2025Article
- The People's Review protocol: planning an innovative study powered by the public.Research involvement and engagement · 2025Review
- Public Understanding and Expectations of Digital Health Evidence Generation: Focus Group Study.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Recruiting general practitioners and older patients with multimorbidity to randomized trials.Family practice · 2023Article
- Opening up ideas: an advent calendar for patient and public engagement in clinical trials research.Research involvement and engagement · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRandomised trials are considered the gold standard in providing robust evidence on the effectiveness of interventions. However, there are relatively few initiatives to help increase public understanding of what randomised trials are and why they are important. This limits the overall acceptance of and public participation in clinical trials. The People's Trial aims to help the public learn about randomised trials, to understand why they matter, and to be better equipped to think critically about health claims by actively involving them in all aspects of trial design. This was done by involving the public in the design, conduct, and dissemination of a randomised trial.
methodsUsing a reflexive approach, we describe the processes of development, conduct, and dissemination of The People's Trial.
resultsOver 3000 members of the public, from 72 countries, participated in The People's Trial. Through a series of online surveys, the public designed a trial called The Reading Trial. They chose the question the trial would try to answer and decided the components of the trial question. In December 2019, 991 participants were recruited to a trial to answer the question identified and prioritised by the public, i.e. 'Does reading a book in bed make a difference to sleep in comparison with not reading a book in bed?' We report the processes of The People's Trial in seven phases, paralleling the steps of a randomised trial, i.e. question identification and prioritisation, recruitment, randomisation, trial conduct, data analysis, and sharing of findings. We describe the decisions we made, the processes we used, the challenges we encountered, and the lessons we learned.
conclusionThe People's Trial involved the public successfully in the design, conduct, and dissemination of a randomised trial demonstrating the potential for such initiatives to help the public learn about randomised trials, to understand why they matter, and to be better equipped to think critically about health claims.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04185818 . Registered on 4 December 2019.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.