1. swCRTdesign: An RPackage for Stepped Wedge Trial Design and Analysis.
- Author
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Voldal EC, Hakhu NR, Xia F, Heagerty PJ, and Hughes JP
- Subjects
- Computer Simulation, Research Design, Software
- Abstract
Background and Objective: Stepped wedge trials (SWTs) are a type of cluster-randomized trial that are commonly used to evaluate health care interventions. Most SWT-related software packages have restrictive assumptions about the study design and correlation structure of the data. The objective of this paper is to present a package and corresponding web-based graphical user interface (GUI) that provide researchers with another, more flexible option for SWT design and analysis., Methods: We developed an Rpackage swCRTdesign ('stepped wedge Cluster Randomized Trial design'), which uses a random effects model to account for correlation in the data induced by a SWT design. Possible sources of correlation include clusters, time within clusters, and treatment within clusters., Results: swCRTdesign allows a user to calculate power, simulate SWT data to streamline simulation studies (e.g. to estimate power), and create descriptive summaries and plots. Additionally, a GUI, developed using shiny, is available to calculate power and create power curves and design plots., Conclusions: The swCRTdesign package accommodates a wide variety of SWT designs, and makes it easy to account for some sources of correlation which are not found in other packages. The user-friendly web-based GUI makes some swCRTdesign features accessible to researchers not familiar with R. These two resources will make appropriately complex SWT calculations more accessible to scientists from a wide variety of backgrounds., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have declared no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2020
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