Trials encompasses all aspects of the performance and findings of randomized controlled trials in health. We publish articles on general trial methodology and research into trial processes, as well as study protocols and statistical analysis plans for randomized controlled trials, commentaries and traditional results papers - regardless of outcome or significance of findings.
Aims and scope
Articles
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Design and rationale for an empirical investigation of the resource use and costs of investigator-initiated randomized trials in Switzerland, the UK, and Germany
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Evaluating the effectiveness of Smoke-Free Home SafeCare, an integrated intervention, among families at risk for secondhand smoke exposure and child maltreatment in the United States: a study protocol for a hybrid type 1 trial
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The effect of MIND diet on sleep status, anxiety, depression, and cardiometabolic indices in obese diabetic women with insomnia: study protocol for a randomized controlled clinical trial {1}
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DepActive: study protocol for a randomised controlled multicentre trial of telephone-delivered behavioural activation for the treatment of depression in older adults in primary care
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Palliative long-term abdominal drains versus repeated drainage in individuals with untreatable ascites due to advanced cirrhosis: study protocol for a feasibility randomised controlled trial
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Through the looking glass: understanding non-inferiority
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Oral corticosteroids for post-infectious cough in adults: study protocol for a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial in Swiss family practices (OSPIC trial)
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Sample size requirements to estimate key design parameters from external pilot randomised controlled trials: a simulation study
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Assessment of clinical effect and treatment quality of immediate-release carvedilol-IR versus SLOW release carvedilol-SR in Heart Failure patients (SLOW-HF): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
Article collections
Article collection
The use of electronic consent (e-Consent) in randomised trials
Special Issue
Reducing financial hardships from cancers
Edited by Dr Matthew Banegas and Dr Janet S. de Moor
Thematic series
Case studies of experience with interim data and IDMCs in RCTs
Edited by Prof Matthew Sydes (MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL)
Article collection
COVID-19 trial protocols
Article collection
Impact of COVID-19 on clinical trials
Thematic series
The future of pragmatic trials
Edited by Prof Marion Campbell and Prof Sandra Eldridge
Thematic series
Big data for randomized trials
Edited by Dr Lars Hemkens
Article collection
Sample size calculations and specifying the target difference for randomized trials
Thematic series
Building capacity for evidence informed trial management
Edited by Dr Roberta Littleford and Prof Shaun Treweek
Trending articles
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Blogs
Thank you to our peer reviewers
The editors and staff of Trials would like to warmly thank our peer reviewers whose comments have helped to shape the journal.
Peer review mentoring
The Editors endorse peer review mentoring of early career researchers. Find out more here
Announcement: we are recruiting new Associate Editors
We are recruiting new Associate Editors to join our international Editorial Board, helping to provide expertise on the design, conduct and reporting of trials in our journal.
Click here to find out more.
Call-for-papers
Improving equity, diversity, and inclusion in randomised trials
Edited by Shaun Treweek (University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom), Kamlesh Khunti (University of Leicester, United Kingdom), Shoba Dawson (The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom) and Tianjing Li (University of Colorado Denver, United States of America)
Call-for-papers
Long-term Impact of Educational Interventions on Critical Health Literacy in Secondary School Students
Edited by Shaun Treweek (University of Aberdeen, UK)
Call-for-papers
The collection, analysis and reporting of adverse events in randomised controlled trials
Edited by Victoria Cornelius (Imperial College London, UK) and Rachel Phillips (Imperial College London, UK)
Call-for-papers: Case studies of experience with interim data and IDMCs in RCTs
Edited by Prof Matthew Sydes (MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL)
In Review: an integrated pre-print service for Trials
Trials, in partnership with Research Square, is now offering In Review, a service that allows authors to opt in to upload their manuscript to a free preprint platform when submitting to Springer Nature journals. This service allows authors to:
• Share their work with fellow researchers to read, comment on, and cite even before publication
• Showcase their work to funders and others with a citable DOI while it is still under review
• Track their manuscript - including seeing when reviewers are invited, and when reports are received
Read MoreResearch on Research registry
Trials would like to encourage authors of research on research (also referred to as meta-research or science of science) to register their work with the Research on Research (RoR) registry and hub. The registry has been designed to increase transparency, sharing and collaboration in research to develop and improve research design, conduct or reporting. If you have registered with the RoR registry, please include the registry record URL within your submission.
For more information on the RoR registry, and to register your research, please visit https://ror-hub.org/.
Link your publications with an ORCiD identifier
Trials would like to ask all authors to include their ORCiD identifier when submitting their work to Trials. An ORCiD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) number uniquely attaches your identity to your research work, such as your articles and datasets. You can get your free personal identifier ​at https://ORCiD.org/register.
Read MoreSubmissions on complementary and alternative medicine
As a journal dedicated to improve the reporting and publication of clinical trials, we aim to embrace all content that is relevant, including general methodology papers, and research into the trial processes, protocols and statistical analysis plan for randomized controlled trials, as well as traditional research and commentary papers. However, it requires an in-depth subject knowledge to properly evaluate papers on the topic of complementary and alternative medicine to assess the intervention, the design of the trials, as well as the primary and secondary outcomes. Hence we feel it’s better to refer authors of these papers to the journals that are more equipped with the expertise required.
As of 1st September 2021, Trials will no longer be considering papers on the topic of complementary and alternative medicine. We recommend the below journals from the BMC family that can accommodate studies in this area, do please check each journal scope carefully before submitting:
・BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies (accepting study protocols)
・Nutrition Journal (accepting study protocols)
Submissions made after 1st September will be referred to Transfer Desk team who will help the authors select a proper destination for their manuscript.
Structured Study Protocols
Trials is experimenting with a new way of structuring study protocols for randomised trials. The simple innovation is to include all 51 SPIRIT headings and item identifiers within the protocol itself. Readers will then benefit from the ability to search by item identifier, which are contained within curly brackets. This is not mandatory and we will continue to consider protocols submitted in other formats.
We have created a template for this new format that contains both SPIRIT and Trials guidance in one place.
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Annual Journal Metrics
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Citation Impact 2023
Journal Impact Factor: 2.0
5-year Journal Impact Factor: 2.1
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP): 0.733
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR): 0.812Speed 2023
Submission to first editorial decision (median days): 28
Submission to acceptance (median days): 129Usage 2023
Downloads: 6,282,238
Altmetric mentions: 5,569