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OSTRICH was an RCT investigating the effectiveness of prefabricated orthoses compared with exercise and advice alone on the physical functioning of children with symptomatic flat feet. The trial included a cluster randomised SWAT looking at the effectiveness of using a multimedia intervention in addition to the usual participant information sheet to aid recruitment. Unfortunately, the […]

As part of the NIHR-funded Implement SWATs programme, host trial teams are invited to collaborate with us to test the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of monetary incentives for improving participant recruitment and retention in trials. The Implement SWATs team will lead on writing the SWAT protocol, supporting documents and the ethical application, with the aim of keeping

Studies Within A Trial (SWATs) are a good way of generating evidence to support trial process decision-making.  SWATs are designing to be replicated, which means it’s important to have some focus otherwise we end up with lots of single evaluations that don’t really provide much certainty as to what is and is not effective.

The Trial Forge SWAT Centre (University of York) in conjunction with the Trial Forge SWAT Network have recently been working to develop resources on the design and delivery of Studies Within A Trial (SWATs). These include a range of resources (animations, infographics and flow diagrams) on all stages of a SWAT and with both academic and Plain English versions to ensure all research stakeholders are able to access and make use of these.

When conducting research, it is crucial that the knowledge generated is disseminated and shared with the people who can use it to improve care and outcomes. This is known as knowledge mobilisation. Whilst lots of research is published in academic journals only a small percentage actually influences practice or policy. One reason for this is that researchers don’t always know which approaches or strategies work best to share their research effectively with the people who need it.

To address this gap, the NIHR has launched an exciting new initiative. In 2023, the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme expanded the remit of studies with a trial or project (SWATs) to include studies testing alternative ways of disseminating and sharing knowledge with key evidence users. Research teams can apply for up to an additional £30,000 to embed dissemination and knowledge mobilisation SWATs in their main study. This is an innovative way to build understanding about the best way to disseminate and share research knowledge to promote its uptake and use.

So, for example, a team applying for NIHR HTA funding might include a dissemination and knowledge mobilisation SWAT that compares a face-to-face stakeholder event to a written summary of research results sent to study participants. Participants could be patients, the public, and/or healthcare professionals, depending on the SWAT. A randomized design could be used to allocate study participants to receive the study findings in one of these two ways, and a mixed methods evaluation completed to consider acceptability and knowledge gained from the two dissemination methods.

While SWATs are welcome across NIHR programs, for now, this particular type of SWAT is being encouraged within the HTA program. Depending on how things go there, other programs may start to encourage similar knowledge mobilization SWATs in the future.

NIHR has some new ‘Plan knowledge mobilization‘ pages, which will be a useful reference for those considering a SWAT testing alternative ways of disseminating and sharing knowledge.