Please see below details of a PhD post due to start between October 2006 and March 2007 which would be suitable for a statistician or clinician. Please pass this message to anyone you think might be interested. Thanks.
Sandra
PhD Studentship
Centre for Health Sciences
Barts and the London
Queen Mary's School of Medicine Dentistry
Interpreting outcome data in back pain trials
A three year PhD studentship is available for a student from a clinical or non-clinical background. Applications are welcome from clinicians from any physical or psychological therapeutic discipline and non-clinical applicants from either a social science or a mathematical science background. Clinical applicants require an MSc or previous research experience. Non-clinical applicants will have at least an upper second class honours degree or a lower second class honours degree with a masters.
Low back pain is a common disorder with a large health and social impact. Few of the randomised controlled trials of low back pain treatment have shown a substantial sustained benefit, although some benefit at one point in time has often been shown. Interpreting the clinical importance of these positive trials is problematic, particularly because of the messy natural history of back pain and because the size of a clinically important difference will vary according to baseline severity. Simply reporting a statistically significant difference in mean values at one follow-up time may not be meaningful to health care purchasers, health professionals, or indeed patients. For example, it may not be clear how many individual participants have a clinically important improvement / deterioration; how much additional improvement participants gain when compared to the natural history of the back pain; or what benefits accrued over the whole follow-up period. How the outcome data from back pain trials are reported needs critical re-appraisal. An opportunity exists to make use of the datasets from recent, and ongoing, large RCTs to explore these issues in depth. The student will;
a) Systematically review of the reporting methods used in RCTS of back pain treatments
b) Develop criteria for minimally important improvements and deteriorations in the clinical outcome measures
c) Use these criteria for secondary analysis of data from several larger RCTs of back pain treatments
d) Evaluate the face validity of the different approaches to presenting main outcome data from back pain trials, using depth interviews with patients, health professional and NHS purchasers
e) Perform a Delphi study of leading back pain researchers internationally, to develop an international consensus on the presentation of back pain trial results
This studentship is funded by the Royal London & St Bartholomew's Charitable Foundation and comes with a tax free stipend of £13000.00 per annum. Home/EU tuition fees will be paid by the Charitable Foundation. Non EU applicants will have to fund the difference between home and overseas tuition fees themselves, approximately £8000.00 per annum for a minimum of three years.
For an informal discussion please contact the lead project supervisor: Dr S Eldridge
Tel: 020 7882 2519 Email: [log in to unmask]
How to Apply: Application forms for School of Medicine & Dentistry can be downloaded from the web site below and returned to the address on the form.
http://www.qmul.ac.uk/postgrad/pgapplyq.shtml
Closing date for applications is 8th May 2006
Sandra Eldridge
Centre for Health Sciences
Queen Mary, University of London
2 Newark Street
Whitechapel
E1 2AT
telephone: 020 7882 2519
fax: 020 7882 2552
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