ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2022
Conducting Randomized Controlled Trials of Complex Interventions in Prisons: A Sisyphean Task?
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review on the Effectiveness of Interventions for Individuals Who Have Committed Online Sexual Crimes Involving Children.Psychosocial intervention · 2026Pooled it
- Predicting attrition of men with a history of violence from randomised clinical trials.Trials · 2023Trial
- Partially randomized preference trials in carceral health research: a methodology to advance equity and inclusion.Trials · 2026Article
- Identifying potential barriers and enablers to smoking abstinence after leaving a smokefree prison using the capabilities, opportunities, motivations -behaviour (COM-B) model: a qualitative interview study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Acceptability and feasibility of Problem Management Plus to address mental health problems among remand prisoners in the Netherlands: a pilot randomised controlled trial protocol.Health & justice · 2025Article
- An analysis of published study designs in PubMed prisoner health abstracts from 1963 to 2023: a text mining study.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Review
- Case example of a jail-based cancer prevention clinical trial: Social determinants of health framework, novel experimental design, and retention strategies to facilitate long-term follow-up of clinical trial participants.Journal of clinical and translational science · 2023Article
- An Analysis of PubMed Abstracts From 1946 to 2021 to Identify Organizational Affiliations in Epidemiological Criminology: Descriptive Study.Interactive journal of medical research · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) are the "gold standard" for measuring the effectiveness of an intervention. However, they have their limitations and are especially complex in prison settings. Several systematic reviews have highlighted some of the issues, including, institutional constraints e.g., "lock-downs," follow-ups, contamination of allocation conditions and a reliance on self-report measures. In this article, we reflect on our experiences and will describe two RCTs. People in prison are a significantly disadvantaged and vulnerable group, ensuring equitable and effective interventions is key to reducing inequality and promoting positive outcomes. We ask are RCTs of complex interventions in prisons a sisyphean task? We certainly don't think so, but we propose that current accepted practice and research designs may be limiting our understanding and ability to test complex interventions in the real-world context of prisons. RCTs will always have their place, but designs need to be flexible and adaptive, with the development of other rigorous methods for evaluating impact of interventions e.g., non-randomized studies, including pre-post implementation studies. With robust research we can deliver quality evidence-based healthcare in prisons - after all the degree of civilization in a society is revealed by entering its prisons.
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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.