Administrative Work (RCT)

  1. Obtain permission from Epiville General Hospital regarding use of their internal data.
  2. Get approval from your Institutional Review Board (IRB)- this will ensure that the study adheres to the ethical principles of conducting public health research and that the rights of the study participants are protected.
  3. Prepare a budget and get funding.
  4. Develop an operations manual to be used by all study personnel which will describe the standardized procedures for collecting and managing data.
  5. Design a consent form for study participants clearly indicating the study's goals, risks, benefits, expenses that participants might incur if they decide to participate in the study, how participants might benefit from their participation, and how you plan to make use of the data once they are collected.
  6. Design form to collect relevant patient data.
  7. Hire and train interviewers and clinicians.
  8. Design a data management plan (e.g., how and where paper will be stored, when and how they will be entered into the computer database, how the data cleaning will be performed, and how often checks of the data will be performed to spot possible problems in the study).
  9. Design a data analysis plan and propose how you will publicize the findings.