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Aims and scope

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.

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Articles

  1. Authors: Lucia Macken, Louise Mason, Catherine Evans, Heather Gage, Jake Jordan, Mark Austin, Nick Parnell, Max Cooper, Shani Steer, Justine Boles, Stephen Bremner, Debbie Lambert, David Crook, Gemma Earl, Jean Timeyin and Sumita Verma

    The Correction to this article has been published in Trials 2018 19:488

  2. Authors: Dong-Ju Choi, Chan Soon Park, Jin Joo Park, Hae-Young Lee, Seok-Min Kang, Byung-Su Yoo, Eun-Seok Jeon, Seok Keun Hong, Joon-Han Shin, Myung-A Kim, Dae-Gyun Park, Eung-Ju Kim, Soon-Jun Hong, Seok Yeon Kim and Jae-Joong Kim

    The Correction to this article has been published in Trials 2022 23:594

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

View all article collections


Trending articles

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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

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Research 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.

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Submissions 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)

・Chinese Medicine

・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

  • 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): 0.812

    Speed 2023
    Submission to first editorial decision (median days): 28
    Submission to acceptance (median days): 129

    Usage 2023
    Downloads: 6,282,238
    Altmetric mentions: 5,569