London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Evaluators often consider using stepped wedge trial designs when there is evidence that an intervention is likely to be effective, and when implementing it in phases is desirable or inevitable.

In this talk we consider whether stepped wedge designs offer a more ethical alternative to parallel group designs when there is prior evidence of efficacy, and share practitioners’ experiences of designing and conducting these studies. We conclude by discussing situations when using stepped wedge trial designs might be recommended.