Use Pivot to search for current grant opportunities in your area(s) of interest:
- save your search and receive alerts whenever new matching opportunities are posted
- also useful for finding conferences calling for papers
- create a Pivot profile so other researchers looking for collaborators can find you
For federal grants
Federal, specifically NIMH
From the UF Office of Research
Internal Funding:
Reporting Guidelines
Reporting guidelines for multiple trial designs are available. My suggestion is that you become familiar with these early and not wait until you are ready to report your study results. If they are reviewed in the planning phases of the study you can be sure to include critical design elements on which you need to report; these are easy to address up front, but may be impossible to correct after the study has been conducted.
The CONSORT (CONsolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) guidelines cover parallel group RCTs. They provide a 25-item checklist, a flow diagram, and a document explaining and elaborating on the items in the guidelines. The 2010 version is the most current: http://www.consort-statement.org/
In addition to the general statement, the guidelines have been extended to more specialized areas as well, including non-pharmacological trials, orthodontic trials, pragmatic trials, feasibility and pilot randomized trials, etc. The EQUATOR Network has an excellent site with links to all of these: http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/consort/
For systematic reviews and meta-analyses, see PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items in Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses): http://www.prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/Default.aspx
- Like CONSORT, they have a checklist, flow diagram, and explanatory documents.
For case studies, CARE (CAse REports): http://www.care-statement.org/
For observational studies, STROBE (STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology): https://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=strobe-publications
Study Quality Assessment / Strength of Evidence
AHRQ publication from 2002 assessing study quality scales/checklists for individual studies and grading systems for bodies of evidence on a specific subject: http://www.thecre.com/pdf/ahrq-system-strength.pdf
For evaluating evidence across studies, GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations): http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/x/set/static/ebm/learn/665072.html; http://www.gradeworkinggroup.org/
Other Tools
The Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) has a scale applicable to PT therapies, such as exercise, that is included in their database: https://www.pedro.org.au/english/downloads/pedro-scale/
The Cochrane Risk of Bias tool is also useful: https://methods.cochrane.org/bias/resources/rob-2-revised-cochrane-risk-bias-tool-randomized-trials
PCORI Methodology Standards: http://www.pcori.org/research-results/about-our-research/research-methodology/pcori-methodology-standards?utm_source=May+2017+Newsletter&utm_campaign=April+2017+Newsletter&utm_medium=email
FDA Guidance Documents: https://www.fda.gov/RegulatoryInformation/Guidances/default.htm
What do you think is meaningful and likely to change via your intervention in the proposed time frame?
Search the Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials database (link below) to see if there are core outcome set studies for your population of interest.
Find out if there are any outcomes recommended by expert panels for inclusion in clinical trials in your population. For example, for osteoarthritis, there is a 1996 paper entitled, "Design and conduct of clinical trials in patients with osteoarthritis: recommendations from a task force of the Osteoarthritis Research Society. Results from a workshop." This spells out study design issues and recommends a core set of outcomes to include in clinical trials in those with osteoarthritis.
Keywords to try when searching PubMed and other databases for similar papers in your population: expert panel, task force, work group, working group OR the name of the research group for your population if known (e.g., OARSI)..
Are there accepted/expected measures you need to include?
What measures will allow you to draw comparisons to existing studies?
For the specific measure:
• Are there validation studies in your population?
• Multiple versions (number of items, scale format [Likert, NRS])?
• Are there MCID, MCII, PASS, norms available to give meaning?
• Minimal Clinically Important Difference (MCID)
• Minimal Clinically Important Improvement (MCII)
• Patient Acceptable Symptom State (PASS)
• Population norms (also check scoring manual)
Read the actual questions to see if the instrument captures what you want
Also check whether any grouping of questions into subscales make sense
Be aware if there are multiple versions (e.g., 36-item vs. 12-item versions; 60-seconds vs. 90-seconds)
Also find the scoring manual/instructions in advance
Instrument is useless if you can't score it
Finding the questionnaire/inventory/index/scale
Title words in studies which often have the instrument questions listed: development, psychometric, reliability, validity, validation
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