We recommend that trialists use a social benefit message in the context of an intervention evaluation.
How can I use this straight away?
See Resource bundle below for details on how to use a social benefit message.
Practical Impact
Imagine initial retention is 65% of those approached. You have a trial with 100 participants that needs responses from 80 to meet its statistical power calculations. Retention of 65% means that you will be 15 responses short (see chart below).
Now imagine using a social benefit message. The chart below shows the impact of an absolute increase of 0% (95% CI = -4% to 4%). Retention remains unchanged.
Cumulative Meta-Analysis*
*Random effects model done using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis v4 (www.meta-analysis.com). Differences >0% favour the intervention. The GRADE assessment is low because of the imprecision of a single study and a wide CI crossing RD=0.
The ‘Does it work?’ statement is structured according to effect size and GRADE certainty as per GRADE Guidelines 26 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2019.10.014). The statement is for trivial, small unimportant effect or no effect and Low GRADE certainty.
The recommendation statement is the consensus view of the authors of this summary based on the GRADE certainty and features of the trials contributing to the evidence.