Certificate of Achievement
has completed the following course:
Randomised Trials and Their Role in Modern Healthcare
This course explored the fundamentals of randomised clinical trials, including their historical development, treatment testing phases, randomisation methods, ethical considerations, participant safety, and interpreting trial results in healthcare.
5 weeks, 1 hour per week
Prof. Declan Devane
Professor of Health Research Methodology
University of Galway
Transcript
Learning outcomes
- Describe randomised trials, their key features and why randomised clinical trials are important for making health decisions.
- Identify the key steps involved in a randomised clinical trial.
- Describe the role of randomisation within clinical trials.
- Discuss both the advantages and limitations of randomised trials in producing trustworthy information.
- Explain ethical considerations in the context of conducting randomised trials.
Syllabus
- The basic concepts, key features, and historical development of randomised trials and their importance in healthcare today.
- The journey treatments take from laboratory research through testing phases to approval and ongoing safety monitoring.
- The types of techniques used to assign participants to groups, the benefits and limitations of these methods, and how they help to create fair comparisons.
- Informed consent processes, how participants are selected, participant rights, and safety monitoring in clinical trials.
- How trials have improved medical treatments, revealed potential harms, and helped establish personalised treatment approaches.
- Understanding trial results and the reliability of findings.
Issued on 29th July 2025
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