Conclusion
We have demonstrated that a checklist of the eight criteria of
usefulness can be used successfully to explore the usefulness of
clinical research. Focusing on preterm birth research, our usefulness
assessment points out that those clinical trials so far lacked many
usefulness features, with one tenth of trials meeting half of the items
evaluated. Use of informative outcomes, patient centeredness, pragmatism
and transparency should be key targets for future research planning.
These usefulness criteria can be adopted across diverse domains of
clinical investigations and may offer feedback to different stakeholders
(researchers, patients, peer reviewers, journal editors, guideline
developers and policy makers) to improve future study design.