Null effects in trials – a worked example of a maltreatment prevention trial

Michael Robling and Rebecca Cannings-John

Chapter 14 in Experimental Methods and Children's Social Care, 2025, pp 167-188 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Abstract: Null effects in trials occur when there is insufficient difference between the intervention and control arms for tested primary outcomes to reject the null hypothesis. In this chapter, the authors explore the prevalence of null effects in different domains where clinical trials have been undertaken. Using a case study trial of specialist home visiting intended to prevent maltreatment, they explore what may contribute to null effects in trials. Such null effects include occasions where differences in effect are found between early stages of research, where the potential efficacy of a new approach shows promise, and later phases where interventions may be delivered at scale. The authors look at what may be learnt from trials where a null effect is concluded for both future design and delivery of a new intervention or service and for future evaluation.

Keywords: Null effects; Randomised controlled trials; Intervention evaluation; Explanatory trials; Pragmatic trials; Children's social care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035327140
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035327157.00022 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:23060_15

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().