Pragmatic Trials

In pragmatic trials, participants are broadly representative of people who will receive a treatment or diagnostic strategy, and the outcomes affect day-to-day care. The authors review the unique features of pragmatic trials through a wide-ranging series of exemplar trials. Pragmatism in clinical trials arose from concerns that many trials did not adequately inform practice because they were optimized to determine efficacy. 1 Because such trials were performed with relatively small samples at sites with experienced investigators and highly selected participants, they could be overestimating benefits and underestimating harm. This led to the belief that more pragmatic trials, designed to show the real-world effectiveness of the intervention in broad patient groups, were required. Medical researchers, both academic and commercial, must deliver health care innovations (drugs, devices, or other interventions) that are safe, beneficial, and cost-effective, and they must identify the subgroups . . .